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scholar of Rand must be careful with these sources. Clearly colored by personal bias,
they also exert a more subtle interpretative power, for instance glorifying the Brandens’
importance to Rand at the expense of other signifi cant fi gures such as Leonard Peikoff
and Frank O’Connor. Though it often goes overboard in its attacks on the Brandens,
James Valliant’s The Passion of Ayn Rand’s Critics (2005) subjects both books to intense
scrutiny and offers an alternative account of Rand’s break with Nathaniel Branden. Jeff
Walker’s The Ayn Rand Cult (1999), based on interviews with former Objectivists, follows
the Brandens’ emphasis on Rand’s personal life.
Accounts that attempted to return discussion to Rand’s ideas include ARI scholar
Alan Gotthelf’s On Ayn Rand (2000), published as part of the Wadsworth philosophy
series, and Ronald E. Merrill’s The Ideas of Ayn Rand (1991). Louis Torres’s What Art Is
(2000) explores Rand’s aesthetic theory. Leonard Peikoff’s Objectivism: The Philosophy
of Ayn Rand (1991) offers the orthodox Objectivist exegesis of her thought.
Yet another distinct cycle of writing about Rand began in the mid-1990s, when scholars
began to draw on documentary and archival material to craft increasingly sophisticated
analyses of Rand’s philosophy and writings. The fi rst author to integrate Rand’s life
and thought was Chris Sciabarra, who situated Rand within the tradition of dialectical
philosophy in The Russian Radical (1995). Though written without access to Rand’s personal
papers, Sciabarra’s book employed original research and brought to light hitherto
unknown information about Rand’s educational background. Along with Mimi Reisel
Gladstein, Sciabarra attempted to draw Rand scholarship out of the Objectivist ghetto
by assembling a broad range of contributors for the volume Feminist Interpretations of
Ayn Rand (1999). Sciabarra and several collaborators also launched the Journal of Ayn
Rand Studies, a publication that touts its independence from any group, institution,
or philosophical perspective. The prolifi c libertarian philosopher Tibor Machan, once
an acquaintance of Rand’s, added to the academic literature with his study Ayn Rand
(1999).
In recent years there has been an explosion of scholarship on Rand, much of it fed by
the newly opened Ayn Rand Archives and funded by the Ayn Rand Institute. Modeled
on other libertarian advocacy groups, such as the Institute for Humane Studies, the now
defunct Volker Fund, and the Liberty Fund, ARI has launched an Objectivist Academic
Center that runs seminars and conferences on Rand’s thought and supports a journal,
The Objective Standard. The newly active Anthem Foundation, an affi liated organization,
offers grants and other fi nancial support to university professors interested in
Rand. These efforts have yielded Facets of Ayn Rand (2001), a sympathetic memoir by
Charles and Mary Ann Sures; Ayn Rand (2004), a short and factually accurate biography
of Rand written by the head archivist, Jeff Britting; and Valliant’s The Passion of Ayn
Rand’s Critics (2005). The Institute has also sponsored a series on each of Rand’s major
novels, edited by Robert Mayhew, which includes Essays on Ayn Rand’s We the Living
(2004), Essays on Ayn Rand’s Anthem (2005), Essays on Ayn Rand’s The Fountainhead
(2007), and Essays on Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged (2009). Although they are clearly written
by partisans of Rand and thus lack a critical edge, the essays in Mayhew’s books
are based on historical evidence and carefully argued. They represent a signifi cant step
forward in Objectivist scholarship.
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