called 'dialectics' is integral to Ayn Rand's philosophic approach and crucial to its success. Russian Radical is a different kind of look at Ayn Rand, a full-fledged 'hermeneutic' on the contours, development, and interpretation of her thought." According to Lester H. Hunt: "It is indicative of the interest of this book that I have so far engaged in an argument with it instead of saying how good I think it is on the whole. Among other things, it is an excellent synthesis of the Objectivist literature, both the works of Rand and those of her immediate successors. Sciabarra's mastery of enormous amounts of material is almost literally incredible. He also manages to break entirely new ground on several different issues." While James G. Lennox thoroughly rejects the author's historical conclusions, and he recommends against construing Rand's method of challenging dichotomies or "false alternatives" as "dialectical," he also writes, "[i]ts author has an encyclopedic familiarity with the writings of Ayn Rand and with virtually everyone who has advocated, commented on, or written critically about Objectivism. [...]. He is the first of her commentators to explore the intellectual milieu of Rand's early, formative years, providing a deeper appreciation for her occasional scathing remarks about Russian culture as she had experienced it. All of this material is discussed, and exhaustively referenced, in the interests of providing a comprehensive analysis of Objectivism, not merely as a philosophical system, but as a philosophical and cultural movement." Virtually the same review ran as "Reaching for Roots" in the February 1996 issue of Reason. John Ridpath, a director of the Ayn Rand Institute, has argued that The Russian Radical is postmodern and deconstructionist in its overall orientation, that it is a "worthless product" of contemporary academia, and that on the whole it was "preposterous in its thesis, destructive in its purpose, and tortuously numbing in its content." Bibliography Dialectics and Liberty trilogy Edited works With Mimi Reisel Gladstein. With Roger E. Bissell and Edward W. Younkins. Monographs Dissertation Toward a Radical Critique of Utopianism (1988) References External links Dialectics & Liberty Home Page Notablog Online Journal The Journal of Ayn Rand Studies 1960 births Living people 21st-century American male writers 21st-century American non-fiction writers American libertarians American male bloggers American bloggers American people of Greek descent American people of Italian descent American political writers Gay feminists American gay writers Individualist feminists Libertarian theorists Male feminists Neo-Objectivists New