Articles

Dear Mr. Krugman, In “Galt, Gold and God,” you assert of Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged that “the book is a perennial favorite among adolescent boys. Most boys eventually outgrow it. Some, however, remain devotees for life. And [Paul] Ryan is one of those devotees. . . . Mr. Ryan is…

Although historian Jennifer Burns gets a lot wrong about Ayn Rand, she makes some good points in a recent op-ed for the New York Times. Burns discusses Rand’s ideas in relation to those of Paul Ryan, the GOP’s vice-presidential candidate who has credited Rand for inspiring him to enter politics.…

In a Washington Post article, Eugene Robinson falsely asserts that Ayn Rand “equated capitalist success with moral virtue,” and he claims that Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan ascribe to this allegedly Objectivist outlook. This view, according to Robinson, also entails “disdain” for “the working class,” who, not being “capitalists,” “don’t…

Dan Ariely, a professor at Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business, has released a new book, The Honest Truth About Dishonesty: How We Lie to Everyone—Especially Ourselves. If that title makes you go “hmmm” you might appreciate Eric Daniels’s review of Ariely’s last book, Predictably Irrational: The Hidden Forces that…

Anti-abortion Republicans need to knock off their dogma-driven nonsense. The zealotry to outlaw abortion is morally wrong and politically suicidal. Consider the latest controversy. Todd Akin, the Republican candidate for U.S. Senate in Missouri, had the following exchange August 19 with Charles Jaco: Jaco: Are there any circumstances in your…

Here is another question I’ve received in various forms regarding my endorsement of Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan: “Isn’t it pragmatic and unprincipled to campaign or vote for Romney-Ryan on the grounds that the ticket is merely less bad than Obama-Biden?” This question entails a misunderstanding of both pragmatism and…

Daniel Wahl reviews Lunch Break, by Quent Cordair.

Daniel Wahl reviews Double Cross: The True Story of The D-Day Spies, by Ben Macintyre.

Daniel Wahl reviews The Secret Lives of Codebreakers: The Men and Women Who Cracked the Enigma Code at Bletchley Park, by Sinclair McKay.

Robert Begley reviews Alexander Hamilton, by Ron Chernow.

Roberto Brian Sarrionandia reviews Ayn Rand Nation: The Hidden Struggle for America’s Soul, by Gary Weiss.

How long can liberty in America last when newspapers publish calls for censorship? Today, the Los Angeles Times published an op-ed by Sarah Chayes, former special assistant to the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, condemning the film widely blamed for the current wave of Islamist violence across much…

Andrew Brannan reviews The Locavore’s Dilemma: In Praise of the 10,000-mile Diet, by Pierre Desrochers and Hiroko Shimizu.

Michael A. LaFerrara reviews Ameritopia: The Unmaking of America, by Mark R. Levin.

Ted Gray reviews Merchants of Despair: Radical Environmentalists, Criminal Pseudo-Scientists, and the Fatal Cult of Antihumanism, by Robert Zubrin.