The Woman and the Dynamo: Isabel Paterson and the Idea of America

Rating:
Summary: An original and brilliant libertarian woman
Review: I really enjoyed reading this biography of Isabel Paterson, mostly I suppose because she is a fellow traveler to me. An American living from 1886–1960, Paterson was a libertarian intellectual who lived mostly alone in a world which did not understand. She is best known today for her book about the source of America's greatness, The God of the Machine, but she was also a famous literary critic and a novelist. What makes Paterson special to me, her political values, will probably cause most people to dismiss her.

Stephen Cox gives a good deal of information about the life, relationships, and character of this woman. But, as a bonus, along the way the reader also gets short introductions to many other important people who Paterson knew. These include Ayn Rand, Rose Wilder Lane, John Chamberlain, Leonard Read, William F. Buckley, Herbert Hoover, and many more. The interactions with Rand are especially interesting because Rand achieved surpassing fame as a novelist and movement leader. Rand admired and learned from Paterson, who was 19 years older. On many occasions they sat up and talked most of the night.

The reader of this biography gets a good review of each of Paterson's novels, a few of which show characters much like Paterson herself. From having read a few of her novels, I would have guessed the author was considerate, polite, and feminine — a welcome contrast to Ayn Rand. But the reader of this biography learns that Paterson was routinely rude and ill mannered, and like Rand she broke off many relationships in cold ideological rejection.

Probably this book should be called scholarly; it has lots of footnotes. It seems carefully edited and produced. I noticed only one typo.



Rating:
Summary: Isabel Paterson's America
Review: Those who known the name Isabel Paterson probably know her from her outstanding 1943 work THE GOD OF THE MACHINE. That work, as Prof. Stephen Cox noted in his 1993 introduction, is "one of the few original theories of history that have been developed in America."

Paterson was also a successful novelist and one of the most important columnists and book reviewers of her time. Her life also intersected with many of the most important thinkers in the libertarian and conservative individualist tradition, including Ayn Rand, Russell Kirk, Whittaker Chambers, William Buckley, and H. L. Mencken. Certainly Paterson deserves a full-scale biography and Prof. Cox has filled this gap with this admirable work.

Paterson is also well known for her influence on Ayn Rand. Prof. Cox sheds new light on their relationship. Paterson was a compulsive reader, particularly in history and politics. Rand, on the other hand, appears to have read little in this area. Rand would talk to Paterson for hours at a time, and many of Rand's ideas flowed from what she learned from her. They were both strong-willed and difficult people and their relationship began to show strains when Rand accused Paterson of using some of her own ideas without credit. (Rand had an exaggerated sense of her own originality.) In 1948, Paterson said something offensive to Rand and their relationship came to an end. To Rand's credit, she continued to recommend THE GOD OF THE MACHINE.

This book is something of a "life and times" biography of Paterson. There is much of interest concerning the politics of the time, the New York publishing scene, the nascent libertarian movement and the like. Unfortunately, only THE GOD OF THE MACHINE remains in print and it doesn't appear that an anthology of Paterson's non-fiction writing was ever produced. Hopefully Prof. Cox or someone else will remedy this situation.