A few years ago, The Objectivist Center (a Washington, D.C. think tank) invited me to produce and host a videotaped special about their summer seminar at the University of Vermont, Burlington.  As part of this production, I interviewed philosopher David Kelley, writer Robert Bidinotto, and Barbara Branden, author of The Passion of Ayn Rand.

    A longtime friend (and sometime adversary) of controversial author/philosopher Ayn Rand, Barbara was on the scene when Rand wrote her magnum opus, Atlas Shrugged, which rocketed the philosopher to new heights as an intellectual provocateur.  Barbara, along with husband Nathaniel Branden, helped spread Rand's pro-reason philosophy, Objectivism, throughout the late 1950s and 1960s, until a catastrophic rift developed between Rand and the Brandens in 1968.

An elegant woman with a deep, velvety voice, Barbara chatted with me about her heady days with Rand, the awful schism that tore them apart, their eventual reconciliation, and her thoughts on the present and future influence of Rand's thought on philosophy, politics, and popular culture.

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