Objectively Speaking

Ayn Rand Interviewed

Marlene Podritske, Peter Schwartz

• Publisher: Lexington Books
• Year: 2009
• eBook ISBN: 9781978776876
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Literary Biographies
• Index: Literature

Readers and students of Ayn Rand will value seeing in this collection of interviews how Ayn Rand applied her philosophy and moral principles to the issues of the day. Objectively Speaking includes half a century of print and broadcast interviews drawn from the Ayn Rand Archives. The thirty-two interviews in this collection, edited by Marlene Podritske and Peter Schwartz, include print interviews from the 1930s and edited transcripts of radio and television interviews from the 1940s through 1981. Selections are included from a remarkable series of radio broadcasts over a four-year period (1962-1966) on Columbia University's station WKCR in New York City and syndicated throughout the United States and Canada.

Ayn Rand's unusual and strikingly original insights on a vast range of topics are captured by prominent interviewers in the history of American television broadcasting, such as Johnny Carson, Edwin Newman, Mike Wallace, and Louis Rukeyser. The collection concludes with an interview of Dr. Leonard Peikoff on his radio program in 1999, recalling his 30-year personal and professional association with Ayn Rand and discussing her unique intellectual and literary achievements.

Ayn Rand is the best-selling author of Atlas Shrugged, The Fountainhead, Anthem, and We the Living. Fifty years or more after publication, sales of these novels continue to increase.

Table of contents

• Contents
• Preface
• Acknowledgments
• Part 1. Beginnings: A Russian Émigré's First Interviews (1932–1949)
• Chapter 1. "Russian Girl Jeers at U.S. for Depression Complaint," Oakland Tribune, 1932
• Chapter 2. "True Picture of Russian Girls' Love Life Tragic," Boston Post, 1936
• Chapter 3. "The Woman of Tomorrow," WJZ Radio, 1949
• Part 2. On Campus: Ayn Rand Talks with Future Intellectuals (1962–1966)
• Chapter 4. Objectivism versus Conservatism
• Chapter 5. The Campaign against "Extremism"
• Chapter 6. The "Robber-Barons"
• Chapter 7. Myths of Capitalism
• Chapter 8. The Political Structure of a Free Society
• Chapter 9. The American Constitution
• Chapter 10. Objective Law
• Chapter 11. The Role of a Free Press
• Chapter 12. Education
• Chapter 13. Romantic Literature
• Chapter 14. Romanticism versus Naturalism
• Chapter 15. The Visual Arts
• Chapter 16. Cyrano de Bergerac
• Chapter 17. Favorites in Art
• Chapter 18. The Nature of Humor
• Chapter 19. The Foundations of Morality
• Chapter 20. Altruism
• Chapter 21. Individual Rights
• Chapter 22. The Ethics of Objectivism
• Part 3. On Television and Radio: Ayn Rand in America's Living Rooms (1959–1981)
• Chapter 23. "The Mike Wallace Interview," ABC-TV, 1959
• Chapter 24. For the Intellectual, University of Michigan Television, with Professor James McConnell, 1961
• Chapter 25. The Tonight Show, with Johnny Carson, NBC-TV, August 1967
• Chapter 26. The Tonight Show, with Johnny Carson, NBC-TV, October 1967
• Chapter 27. Speaking Freely, with Edwin Newman, NBC-TV, 1972
• Chapter 28. Day and Night, a television program hosted by James Day, 1974
• Chapter 29. Focus on Youth, a radio show hosted by Garth R. Ancier, 1976
• Chapter 30. The Raymond Newman Journal, a radio show, 1980
• Chapter 31. Louis Rukeyser's Business Journal, 1981
• Epilogue: Leonard Peikoff and Recollections of Ayn Rand
• Index