Cultural icon Ayn Rand (1905-1982) was known as much for her philosophy as for her fiction. Her original theory of esthetics, which attacks many "masterpieces" of modernist art, is as combative and controversial as any of her work, but until now has received little serious scrutiny. In What Art Is, the authors demonstrate that Rand's ideas are supported by evidence from other academic fields.

The Washington Monument is one of the most easily recognized structures in America, if not the world, yet the long and tortuous history of its construction is much less well known. Beginning with its sponsorship by the Washington National Monument Society and the grudging support of a largely indifferent Congress, the Monument's 1848 groundbreaking led only to a truncated obelisk, beset by attacks by the Know Nothing Party and lack of secured funding and, from the mid-1850s, to a twenty-year interregnum. It was only 1n 1876 that a Joint Commission of Congress revived the Monument and...