Books
Dr. Peikoff’s written works include a major treatise on Ayn Rand’s philosophy, a masterful explanation of the rise of Nazi Germany (and what we might learn from it), and a presentation of his own “DIM hypothesis.” These books are in print and available from Amazon and other retailers.
You might consider taking advantage of suggested courses of study, which aim to help students sequence their study of Dr. Peikoff’s courses, lectures, and written works.
The Ominous Parallels
The End of Freedom in America
In his first book, originally published in 1982, Leonard Peikoff surveys pre-Hitler Germany, identifies the philosophic and cultural roots of Nazism, and shows that these same disturbing conditions exist in modern day America.
The Ominous Parallels, said Ayn Rand, “offers a truly revolutionary idea… The book is clear, tight, disciplined, beautifully structured, and brilliantly reasoned. Its style is clear and hard as crystal—and as sparkling… As to my personal reaction, I can express it best by paraphrasing a line from Atlas Shrugged: ‘It’s so wonderful to see a great, new, crucial achievement which is not mine!’”
First published in 1982. 352 pages.
Objectivism: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand
Objectivism: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand is a systematic, hierarchical presentation of Rand’s philosophy, based on Leonard Peikoff’s 1976 course on the subject, which Rand attended and endorsed.
Speaking of that course, Ayn Rand said: “Until or unless I write a comprehensive treatise on my philosophy, Dr. Peikoff’s course is the only authorized presentation of the entire theoretical structure of Objectivism—that is, the only one that I know of my knowledge to be fully accurate.” This 1991 book, says Dr. Peikoff, “recapitulates the 1976 course, but its formulations and logical structure are immeasurably superior.”
First published in 1991. 493 pages.
The DIM Hypothesis
Why the Lights of the West Are Going Out
In his third major work, Leonard Peikoff identifies three methods of mental integration—the rational (Integration), the non-rational (Misintegration), and the destructive (Disintegration)—and proceeds to show how these methods have shaped the world we live in.
By examining the fields of literature, physics, education, and politics from Ancient Greece to the present, Dr. Peikoff identifies historical trends in Western culture and makes a prediction for our future.
First published in 2012. 320 pages.
The Cause of Hitler's Germany
This book draws almost entirely on The Ominous Parallels, focused on the material from that book that explains the rise of Nazi Germany. As Dr. Peikoff notes in the new book’s preface:
Unlike The Ominous Parallels, this substantial portion of it is offered not primarily as a warning but rather as an explanation. To this day, Nazism remains vivid in the public mind as the greatest evil in human history, and continues to be the subject or background of countless novels, films, and nonfiction analyses. But the artists and scholars still have no real explanation; they are no closer than they were in 1982 to identifying the fundamental roots of Nazism.
First published in 2014. 352 pages.