Jennifer Burns is an Assistant Professor of History at the University of Virginia, where she teaches courses on American political, cultural, and intellectual history. Burns is the author Goddess of the Market: Ayn Rand and the American Right, a thoughtful biography of Ayn Rand.

In her masterpiece of fiction, Atlas Shrugged, Ayn Rand emphasizes three key classical liberal themes: individualism, suspicion of centralized power, and the importance of free markets. In this video, Prof. Jennifer Burns shows how Rand’s plot and characters demonstrate these themes, principally through innovative entrepreneurs who are stifled by laws and regulations instituted by their competitors. In the world of Atlas Shrugged, free markets and individual liberty have been traded away for equality and security enforced by the government. Burns ends by reviving Rand’s critical question: do you want to live in this kind of world?

For more, visit Learn​Lib​er​ty​.org.