The press has noted an uptick in interest in the writings of Miss Ayn Rand (followers routinely refer to her as Miss Rand, I understand) since the inauguration of Barack Obama. A film adaptation of her novel Atlas Shrugged is scheduled for release in 2011.

Americans are susceptible to the “Americanist” bent of Miss Rand’s political doctrines, and I have noticed that many, if not most, people of college-undergraduate age who reflect on politics with any seriousness are susceptible to going through a “Rand phase.” Some get over it, others do not.

The December issue of Harper’s Magazine brings a review of two new books about Miss Rand. While generally one should not speak ill of the dead, I could not help noticing the following statement in the review: “A lifelong smoker who for years had dismissed evidence about the health risks of cigarettes as propaganda, she developed lung cancer in the early 1970s….”

It turned out that it was heart failure and not lung cancer that would take her life in 1982.