Perhaps no other person that lived during the most recent century has had more social impact than Ayn Rand. Her writings changed the way that people looked at everything from politics to philosophy.
Ayn Rand (IPA: /ˈaɪn ˈrænd/, February 2 [O.S. January 20] 1905 – March 6, 1982), born Alisa Zinov’yevna Rosenbaum (Russian: Алиса Зиновьевна Розенбаум), was a Russian-born American novelist and philosopher.[1] She is widely known for her best-selling novels The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged, and for developing a philosophical system she called Objectivism.
She was an uncompromising advocate of rational individualism and laissez-faire capitalism, and vociferously opposed socialism, altruism, and other contemporary philosophical trends, as well as religion. Her influential and often controversial ideas have attracted both enthusiastic admirers and scathing denunciation.
Source:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ayn_Rand
Some other Ayn Rand resources.
http://www.aynrandsociety.org/
Conservative Libertarian Outpost 