Forty years ago, I reviewed Leonard Peikoff’s Ominous Parallels very negatively, and with one exception, of which the less said, the better, this proved to be the most controversial review I have ever written. Perhaps it is time for a second look. In what follows, I’ll discuss some of the book’s main points and then offer a few critical remarks.
The philosopher Leonard Peikoff was a member of Ayn Rand’s inner circle, and she considered him her intellectual heir. He has been the guiding light of the “official” Objectivist organization, the Ayn Rand Institute, since its inception. His aim in Ominous Parallels is to interpret Nazism from the standpoint of Objectivist philosophy and then, as the title suggests, to show that the philosophical errors that led to Nazism threaten America.