Mean Girl (American Studies Now: Critical Histories of the Present) (Volume 8)

 "Astute."—New York Times 

Ayn Rand’s complicated notoriety as popular writer, leader of a political and philosophical cult, reviled intellectual, and ostentatious public figure endured beyond her death in 1982. In the twenty-first century, she has been resurrected as a serious reference point for mainstream figures, especially those on the political right from Paul Ryan to Donald Trump. Mean Girl follows Rand’s trail through the twentieth century from the Russian Revolution to the Cold War and traces her posthumous appeal and the influence of her novels via her cruel, surly, sexy heroes. Outlining the impact of Rand’s philosophy of selfishness, Mean Girl illuminates the Randian shape of our neoliberal, contemporary culture of greed and the dilemmas we face in our political present.

• The Story of American Freedom (Norton Paperback)
• This America: The Case for the Nation
• A Lot of People Are Saying: The New Conspiracism and the Assault on Democracy
• Democracy May Not Exist, but We'll Miss It When It's Gone
• People, Power, and Profits: Progressive Capitalism for an Age of Discontent
• American Carnage: On the Front Lines of the Republican Civil War and the Rise of President Trump
• This Life: Secular Faith and Spiritual Freedom
• The Mueller Report
• Irrationality: A History of the Dark Side of Reason
• McMindfulness: How Mindfulness Became the New Capitalist Spirituality