Past Present Future

The Great Political Fictions: Atlas Shrugged


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In this episode David discusses Ayn Rand’s insanely long and insanely influential Atlas Shrugged (1957), the bible of free-market entrepreneurialism and source book to this day for vicious anti-socialist polemics.  Why is this novel so adored by Silicon Valley tech titans?  How can something so bad have so much lasting power?  And what did Rand have against her arch-villain Robert Oppenheimer?


Next time: Salman Rushdie’s Midnight’s Children


Coming soon on PPF: The Ideas Behind UK General Elections


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Past Present FutureBy David Runciman

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