This collection of essays, an expanded edition of The New Left, was compiled by Ayn Rand's disciple Peter Schwartz, founding editor of The Intellectual Activist magazine. In addition to Rand's 12 essays, Schwartz has added three of his own to tackle modern issues from an Objectivist world-view: "Gender Tribalism," "The Philosophy of Privation," and "Multicultural Nihilism." These works approach the issues much as I suspect Ayn Rand would have done, and they are interesting additions to the book.
"Collectivism," writes Rand, "has lost the battle for men's minds; its advocates know it; their last chance consists of the fact that no one else knows it." The essays in this collection are part of Rand's effort to make it known. She assures us that "a social movement that began with the ponderous, brain-cracking, dialectical constructs of Hegel and Marx, and ends up with a horde of morally unwashed children, each stamping his foot and shrieking: 'I want it now!'--is through."
Although many conservatives will find Rand's Objectivist philosophy excessively severe and will object to its atheistic message, they will likely appreciate her criticisms of the "new left." The struggle between the forces of individualism and collectivism (in Rand's view, between rationality and irrationality) is perhaps not quite the epic battle she depicts, but it is a serious contest, and if the individualists lose, that loss will have lasting negative effects on human freedom and progress.
Ayn Rand is too often dismissed in the world of academia; her arguments are not confronted: they are scoffed at and waved away. She is rarely treated as a legitimate philosopher or political theorist. Yet her works show her to be a deep thinker, and it is clear that she has (consciously or not) influenced virtually every conservative and libertarian thinker of the past three decades, even those who may vehemently disagree with her on certain issues.
The young conservative will be most influenced by Rand, and her writings may provide some solace in an educational environment where diversity of thinking is not much tolerated. Most individualist thinkers, says Rand, "endure their college years with the teeth-clenched determination of serving out a jail sentence. The psychological scars they acquire in the process are incalculable. But they struggle as best they can to preserve their capacity to think, sensing dimly that the essence of the torture is an assault on their minds."