The Ayn Rand Letter
Through the 1960s and early 70s, Ayn Rand edited and published a series of periodicals. The last of these was a biweekly newsletter called The Ayn Rand Letter, which was published from October 1971 to February 1976. This 400-page volume reproduces the entire contents of each issue.
While the articles in The Ayn Rand Letter address a broad range of topicsfrom the Vietnam war to the TV show Perry Mason to the metaphysical lessons of chessthey are united by a common theme: that philosophy is not an ivory-towered diversion divorced from practical concerns, but is an indispensable guide to understanding the real world and acting successfully in it. In her article Philosophy: Who Needs Itoriginally delivered as a lecture to the 1974 graduating class at West PointRands answer to the question implied by the title is: everyone.
Many of the articles that Rand wrote for the Letter were collected in the books Philosophy: Who Needs It, which was published after her death in 1982, and The Voice of Reason, published in 1990. In addition to the essay Philosophy: Who Needs It, these include The Metaphysical Versus the Man-Made, an analysisdrawing on Rands view of the basic nature of realityof what is and what is not open to change, and The Lessons of Vietnam, in which Rand identifies in fundamental philosophic terms the causes of Americas failure in the Vietnam war.
But while many of the articles in the Letter are reprinted in these books, many are not, and like all of Rands essays, they offer the intriguing perspective of a world-historical philosopher commenting on the major issues of her day. In The Principals and the Principles and The Energy Crisis, for example, Rand identifies the essential similarity between the Watergate scandal and the 1970s energy crisis: both illustrate in different ways the corruption inherent in, and the destruction wreaked by, a mixed economy. In Ideas v. Goods and Ideas v. Men, she condemns the intellectual bankruptcy of conservatives, as revealed by a conservative economists attack on freedom of the press. And in The Shanghai Gesture, Rand explains why President Nixons historic visit to Chinawhich is widely regarded today as a triumph of Nixons presidencywas, in fact, a total failure of moral principle.
(Hardcover; 400 pages)