Return of the Primitive

The Anti-Industrial Revolution

By: Ayn Rand, Peter Schwartz

Narrated by: Bernadette Dunne

In the 1960s and early '70s, the most prominent, vocal cultural movement was the New Left, a movement that condemned America and everything it stood for: individualism, material wealth, science, technology, capitalism.

While the New Left achieved limited political success, it brought about vast cultural changes that remain with us to this day. The reason is that while its representatives faced some political opposition, they faced little-to-no fundamental intellectual opposition.

Ayn Rand was the exception. In her essays from this period, anthologized in The New Left: The Anti-Industrial Revolution, she opposed the New Left as no one else did. The audience for the book, she wrote, is "all those who are concerned about college students and about the state of modern education" and who are seeking "a voice of reason to turn to".

In her essays, Ayn Rand identified the essential evils of the New Left and their cause. Where most viewed the New Left and its violent college protests, its worship of untouched nature, and its orgiastic mob celebrations as some sort of inexplicable, youthful rebellion against the "establishment", Ayn Rand identified these "rebels" as in fact dutiful, consistent practitioners of the ideas taught to them by their teachers.

Return of the Primitive is an expanded edition of The New Left. It features the entire contents of the original edition authorized by Ayn Rand, plus two of her other essays, "Racism" and "Global Balkanization", which are highly relevant to today's campuses and world. Additionally, it features three essays written after her death by Peter Schwartz, analyzing some of the ideologies that the New Left helped spawn, such as multiculturalism and environmentalism.

For those who seek to understand the state of American culture today, Return of the Primitive is required reading.

©1999 Peter Schwartz (P)2009 Blackstone Audio, Inc.

Why are progressives like they are?

If you want to get an understanding on why progressives and liberals spend their lives denying reality you must read "Comprachicos" and "The Age of Envy". I think these are two Ayn Rand's best essays. And this is saying a lot!

I felt like Hank Rearden

An extremely thorough analysis of the pressing issues of our culture.

This book clarifies the tribalism and collectivism of modern group identity politics: Racism, Multiculturalism, Feminism and Environmentalism. It puts words to the thoughts many of us have been carrying around with us for years.

There were many moments in this book that I felt like Hank Rearden discovering the core of his own philosophy through Francisco d'Anconia in Atlas Shrugged.

We are not alone!

Amazingly insightful and prophetic

Wonderful book.

The narrator occasionally repeats the last sentence. This seems to be an editing error. It happens infrequently enough to be a minute annoyance rather than an impediment to enjoying the book.

Great book, but audible needs edits

The speaker repeats her sentences multiple times. I don’t know if that is in keeping with the original text, or it was mistakes on the speaker’s part, but an editor was badly needed to get rid of the repeats.

We are now repeating the past, important read!

I'm sure many people that hear this book will be shocked to hear that what is happening now in the world and America has happened before . Older people remember when this was going on, and have tried to warn this generation but lack of respect for the older people has caused their warnings to fall on deaf ears. Those that deny, hide, or try to remove the past are doomed to repeat the Past! I suggest your next read be Anthem.