It is very good to see such interest in Rand, and as a canonical feminist no less. People are getting away from arguing about her ideas and seeking to understand them. There are two sets of concerns with the book. One is that it is reflective of the scholarly groupthink it seeks to avoid. Bloopers such as the claim that Aristotle advocated female subjection ( he wrote at a time when the average husband was 40 and wife was 12) that lack cultural insight are typical, as is the implicit Judeo-Protestant Christian conceit about what marriage should consist of. There is also typically American cultural resistance to Rand's firm rejection of American Anglo-Saxon/Nordic matriarchy, with a pro-macho, pro-hembra sensitivity that is in line with her anti-clerical Iberian Heritage little exlored by Rand Scholars. Rand's point is that being a strong female who is yet admiringly passive to her decisive man is not only valid but ennobling, though it may not be for everyone. She completely rejects the one emotional attitude fits all view now current in culture and law, and in understanding Rand there is no way around this. Rand once stated to me that, emotionally, her heart was at times more Latin American than not, and this is reflected in her characters such as Anconia. This useful book captures the current spectrum--and competence-- of American Scholarly Opinion.
