| Description |
250 pages ; 20 cm |
| Bibliography |
Includes bibliographical references (pages 220-244) and index. |
| Summary |
Literature can be used to disseminate ideas with devastating real-life consequences. How Bad Writing Destroyed the World spans decades and continents to reveal the surprising connections between the 2008-2009 financial crisis and a relatively unknown nineteenth-century Russian author. A congressional investigation placed the blame for the financial crisis squarely on Alan Greenspan's deregulatory policies -- his attempts, in essence, to put Ayn Rand's Objectivism into practice. Though developed most famously in Rand's Atlas Shrugged, Objectivism sprouted from the Rational Egoism of Nikolai Chernyshevsky's What Is to be Done? (1863), an enormously influential Russian novel decried by the likes of Fyodor Dostoevsky and Vladimir Nabokov for its destructive radical ethics. In tracing the origins of Greenspan's ruinous ideology, How Bad Writing Destroyed the World combines literary and intellectual history to uncover the dangers of hawking "the virtues of selfishness," even in fiction.-- Publisher's description. |
| Contents |
Introduction: on the dubious virtue of selfishness -- Radicalizing Dostoevsky -- "The most atrocious work of Russian literature" -- Dostoevsky reborn -- Rigor "mortus" or waiting for Rakhmetov -- Fire in the minds of men -- Rakhmetov lives! -- The vengeance of the muse -- In the graveyard of bad ideas. |
| Subject |
Chernyshevsky, Nikolay Gavrilovich, 1828-1889. Chto delatʹ?
|
|
Chernyshevsky, Nikolay Gavrilovich, 1828-1889 -- Influence.
|
|
Dostoyevsky, Fyodor, 1821-1881 -- Influence.
|
|
Rand, Ayn -- Influence.
|
|
Chernyshevsky, Nikolay Gavrilovich, 1828-1889. (OCoLC)fst00060619
|
|
Dostoyevsky, Fyodor, 1821-1881. (OCoLC)fst00032733
|
|
Russian fiction -- 19th century -- History and criticism.
|
|
Rand, Ayn. (OCoLC)fst00018052
|
|
Chto delatʹ? (Chernyshevsky, Nikolay Gavrilovich) (OCoLC)fst01357791
|
|
Russian literature -- Influence.
|
|
Russian literature -- Economic aspects.
|
|
Rationalism in literature.
|
|
Russian literature -- Moral and ethical aspects.
|
|
Egoism in literature.
|
|
Economics and literature -- United States.
|
|
Economics and literature. (OCoLC)fst00902245
|
|
Egoism in literature. (OCoLC)fst00903908
|
|
Influence (Literary, artistic, etc.) (OCoLC)fst00972484
|
|
Rationalism in literature. (OCoLC)fst01090282
|
|
Russian fiction. (OCoLC)fst01102012
|
|
United States. (OCoLC)fst01204155
|
| Chronological Term |
1800-1899
|
| Genre/Form |
Criticism, interpretation, etc. (OCoLC)fst01411635
|
| ISBN |
9781501313110 (paperback) (alkaline paper) |
|
1501313118 (paperback) (alkaline paper) |
|
