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   Book Info

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Passion of Ayn Rand's Critics  
Author: James S. Valliant
ISBN: 1930754671
Format: Handover
Publish Date: June, 2005
 
     
     
   Book Review

Robert Middlemiss, editor-in-chief Durban House Publishing
"This is a vital work, perhaps a bible, for the serious students and supporters of Ayn Rand."

Autonomist
"This book is going to be the Objectivist sensation of the year."

Book Description
For years, best-selling novelist and controversial philosopher Ayn Rand has been the victim of posthumous portrayals of her life and character taken from the pages of the biographies by Nathaniel Branden and Barbara Branden. Now, for the first time, Rand's own never-before-seen journal entries on the Brandens, and the first in-depth analysis of the Brandens' works, reveal the profoundly inaccurate and unjust depiction of their former mentor. This explosive book lays to rest the myths promulgated by the Brandens' books that have made their way into both the popular and scholarly debates about Rand's life and work, from academic journals to Hollywood movies. At last author James S. Valliant shines light on the truth hidden by the Brandens' biographies and sets the record straight on one of the most influential thinkers of our time.

About the Author
Author James Stevens Valliant is the editor of the private journals of Ayn Rand used extensively in his work, The Passion of Ayn Rand's Critics. He and his wife, Holly, created the 1995 television interview show, 'Ideas in Action', the winner of two prestigious Cinema in Industry (CINDY) Awards. Mr. Valliant is currently writing a book on the origins and nature of the New Testament and lives with his wife, Holly, and two small dogs, Marcus Antonius and Cleopatra, in San Diego, California.




Passion of Ayn Rand's Critics

FROM THE CRITICS

Kirkus Reviews

In the "heroic-capitalist" novelist's centenary year, prosecuting attorney Valliant skillfully cross-examines two previous biographers' accounts of her tumultuous love affair with a younger man. The affair itself is notorious: In the middle 1950s, having first obtained the blessing of their respective spouses, brilliant, bestselling Rand, then 50, began a sexual relationship with her 25-year-old protege, Nathaniel Branden, who became her public spokesman. Fourteen years later, the affair blew up after Rand learned of a longstanding extra-extramarital liaison between Branden and one of his female students. He later became a psychologist and author of popular books on self-esteem, but he still had a score to settle with Rand. His memoir-cum-biography, My Years with Ayn Rand (1989), portrayed her as an especially ruthless, hysterical version of the woman scorned, and former wife Barbara Branden did much the same in The Passion of Ayn Rand (1986). Valliant disputes this view, bringing to bear a persuasively close reading of internal contradictions and implausibilities in the Brandens' books and subsequent statements. The author also makes use of previously unpublished personal journals kept by Rand in 1967 and '68, when her vast Objectivist following split into camps and drifted away over the rupture between the philosopher-queen and her "intellectual heir." Valliant appears to be a member of the still-very-active pro-Rand camp, but if the excerpts and editing of these journals can be trusted, they show the Brandens in a harsher light and offer a new glimpse of Rand as a remarkably patient, even "objective" expositor of facts that must have pained her. Far too arcane and cumbersome toenthrall most fans of The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged, but deserves a place on the lengthening shelf of books about the influential Rand's accomplishments and character.

     



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