Ayn Rand, William Buckley, and books you should read

I became fascinated with Ayn Rand after reading Getting It Right by William F. Buckley, Jr. If you're a political junkie, you really should read this book - it's a fictional account of the formation of the conservative movement in the late 50s and early 60s. Now, we could argue about when exactly the movement began, but Buckley was certainly there when the young conservatives were coalescing around a cause. His account of actual events takes place from the point of view of a fictional young man who becomes a conservative activist after experiencing the Soviet invasion of Hungary first-hand.

The book delves into things like the formation of Young Americans for Freedom at the Sharon convention in 1960 (since this happened at Buckley's home, you can take it more or less at face value) and the formation and rise of the John Birch Society. The Ayn Rand part comes in later on, as the young hero and his love move in and out of circles familiar to any political historian.

Buckley isn't exactly revered by the Birchers or by Rand's followers, but nevertheless the book gives a fair account and is a great springboard for further research (I recommend Rick Perlstein's Before the Storm: Barry Goldwater and the Unmaking of the American Consensus, even though I disagree with Perlstein's politics).

I saw on the Harris County Libertarian Party's listserv this morning that Ayn Rand's birthday is this weekend. You'll recall that Ms. Rand was responsible for The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged, among other works, all of which influenced the rise of the libertarian movement and continue to inspire rising young conservatives and libertarians even today. There is a brief biography of this extraordinary woman available here.

(What do you mean, you haven't read any Ayn Rand??? Get thee to the bookstore!!)