In this outstanding volume, Mimi Gladstein details Rand's belief in the moral supremacy of individualism over collectivism, highlighting her contribution to libertarian thought. The novelist and philosopher Ayn Rand was one of the most influential 20th century advocates of free market capitalism. Her work inspired Objectivism, a philosophical movement and former US Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan cited Rand as a formative intellectual influence. In this outstanding volume, Mimi Gladstein details Rand's belief in the moral supremacy of individualism over collectivism, highlighting her contribution to libertarian thought. "Major Conservative and Libertarian Thinkers" provides comprehensive accounts of the works of seminal conservative thinkers from a variety of periods, disciplines and traditions - the first series of its kind. Even the selection of thinkers adds another aspect to conservative thinking, including not only theorists but also thinkers in literary forms and those who are also practitioners. The series comprises twenty volumes, each including an intellectual biography, historical context, critical exposition of the thinker's work, reception and influence, contemporary relevance, bibliography including references to electronic resources and an index.

Author Biography

Mimi Gladstein is Chair of the Department of Theatre, Film, and Literature at the University of Texas at El Paso, USA. She is the author of many books including Feminist Interpretations of Ayn Rand, The Ayn Rand Companion and The Indestructible Woman in Faulkner, Hemingway, and Steinbeck. Dr Meadowcroft is Lecturer in Public Policy at King's College London, UK and the author of The Ethics of the Market (Palgrave, 2005) and co-author of Rescuing Social Capital from Social Democracy (Institute of Economic Affairs, 2007).