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Witness History: Ayn Rand

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Ayn Rand

23/03/2017 GMT

BBC World Service - Witness History, Ayn Rand

The Russian-American philosopher whose novels praising capitalism sold in the millions.

The Russian-American philosopher whose novels about individualism and self-sufficiency sold in the millions.

In 1957, the Russian-born American philosopher, Ayn Rand, published Atlas Shrugged, one of the most politically influential American novels of the 20th Century. The best-seller imagines a dystopia in which all wealth-creators go on strike causing the global economy to collapse. Atlas Shrugged made Ayn Rand a hero for free-market economists and political libertarians. Simon Watts talks to Leonard Peikoff, one of Ayn Rand's earliest followers.

(Photo: Ayn Rand in New York in 1962. Credit: AP)

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