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Cross-cultural perspectives on altruism show that how we view and experience helping others depends heavily on where we come from. In individualistic cultures, like many Western countries, acts of altruism often bring personal joy and satisfaction, as they align with values that emphasize individual achievement and self-fulfillment. On the other hand, in collectivist cultures, common in many Eastern societies, altruism is often seen as a responsibility to the group rather than a personal choice. This difference means that people in collectivist cultures might not feel the same personal happiness from helping others, as the act is more about fulfilling social obligations. Ultimately, these variations highlight how deeply cultural norms shape the way we approach and experience altruism. Scientific viewpoints. Anthropology. Marcel Mauss's essay "The Gift" contains a passage called "Note on alms". This note describes the evolution of the notion of alms (and by extension of altruism) from the notion of sacrifice. In it, he writes:
Evolutionary explanations. In ethology (the scientific study of animal behaviour), and more generally in the study of social evolution, altruism refers to behavior by an individual that increases the fitness of another individual while decreasing the fitness of the actor. In evolutionary psychology this term may be applied to a wide range of human behaviors such as charity, emergency aid, help to coalition partners, tipping, courtship gifts, production of public goods, and environmentalism. The need for an explanation of altruistic behavior that is compatible with evolutionary origins has driven the development of new theories. Two related strands of research on altruism have emerged from traditional evolutionary analyses and evolutionary game theory: a mathematical model and analysis of behavioral strategies. Some of the proposed mechanisms are: Such explanations do not imply that humans consciously calculate how to increase their inclusive fitness when doing altruistic acts. Instead, evolution has shaped psychological mechanisms, such as emotions, that promote certain altruistic behaviors.
The benefits for the altruist may be increased, and the costs reduced by being more altruistic towards certain groups. Research has found that people are more altruistic to kin than to no-kin, to friends than strangers, to those attractive than to those unattractive, to non-competitors than competitors, and to members in-groups than to members of out-groups. The study of altruism was the initial impetus behind George R. Price's development of the Price equation, a mathematical equation used to study genetic evolution. An interesting example of altruism is found in the cellular slime moulds, such as "Dictyostelium mucoroides". These protists live as individual amoebae until starved, at which point they aggregate and form a multicellular fruiting body in which some cells sacrifice themselves to promote the survival of other cells in the fruiting body. Selective investment theory proposes that close social bonds, and associated emotional, cognitive, and neurohormonal mechanisms, evolved to facilitate long-term, high-cost altruism between those closely depending on one another for survival and reproductive success.
Such cooperative behaviors have sometimes been seen as arguments for left-wing politics, for example, by the Russian zoologist and anarchist Peter Kropotkin in his 1902 book "" and moral philosopher Peter Singer in his book "A Darwinian Left". Neurobiology. Jorge Moll and Jordan Grafman, neuroscientists at the National Institutes of Health and LABS-D'Or Hospital Network, provided the first evidence for the neural bases of altruistic giving in normal healthy volunteers, using functional magnetic resonance imaging. In their research, they showed that both pure monetary rewards and charitable donations activated the mesolimbic reward pathway, a primitive part of the brain that usually responds to food and sex. However, when volunteers generously placed the interests of others before their own by making charitable donations, another brain circuit was also selectively activated: the subgenual cortex/septal region. These structures are related to social attachment and bonding in other species. The experiment suggested that altruism is not a higher moral faculty overpowering innate selfish desires, but a fundamental, ingrained, and enjoyable trait in the brain. One brain region, the subgenual anterior cingulate cortex/basal forebrain, contributes to learning altruistic behavior, especially in people with a propensity for empathy.
Bill Harbaugh, a University of Oregon economist, in an fMRI scanner test conducted with his psychologist colleague Dr. Ulrich Mayr, reached the same conclusions as Jorge Moll and Jordan Grafman about giving to charity, although they were able to divide the study group into two groups: "egoists" and "altruists". One of their discoveries was that, though rarely, even some of the considered "egoists" sometimes gave more than expected because that would help others, leading to the conclusion that there are other factors in charity, such as a person's environment and values. A recent meta-analysis of fMRI studies conducted by Shawn Rhoads, Jo Cutler, and Abigail Marsh analyzed the results of prior studies of generosity in which participants could freely choose to give or not give resources to someone else. The results of this study confirmed that altruism is supported by distinct mechanisms from giving motivated by reciprocity or by fairness. This study also confirmed that the right ventral striatum is recruited during altruistic giving, as well as the ventromedial prefrontal cortex, bilateral anterior cingulate cortex, and bilateral anterior insula, which are regions previously implicated in empathy.
Abigail Marsh has conducted studies of real-world altruists that have also identified an important role for the amygdala in human altruism. In real-world altruists, such as people who have donated kidneys to strangers, the amygdala is larger than in typical adults. Altruists' amygdalas are also more responsive than those of typical adults to the sight of others' distress, which is thought to reflect an empathic response to distress. This structure may also be involved in altruistic choices due to its role in encoding the value of outcomes for others. This is consistent with the findings of research in non-human animals, which has identified neurons within the amygdala that specifically encode the value of others' outcomes, activity in which appears to drive altruistic choices in monkeys. Psychology. The "International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences" defines "psychological altruism" as "a motivational state to increase another's welfare". Psychological altruism is contrasted with "psychological egoism", which refers to the motivation to increase one's welfare. In keeping with this, research in real-world altruists, including altruistic kidney donors, bone marrow donors, humanitarian aid workers, and heroic rescuers findings that these altruists are primarily distinguished from other adults by unselfish traits and decision-making patterns. This suggests that human altruism reflects genuinely high valuation of others' outcomes.
There has been some debate on whether humans are capable of psychological altruism. Some definitions specify a self-sacrificial nature to altruism and a lack of external rewards for altruistic behaviors. However, because altruism ultimately benefits the self in many cases, the selflessness of altruistic acts is difficult to prove. The social exchange theory postulates that altruism only exists when the benefits outweigh the costs to the self. Daniel Batson, a psychologist, examined this question and argued against the social exchange theory. He identified four significant motives: to ultimately benefit the self (egoism), to ultimately benefit the other person (altruism), to benefit a group (collectivism), or to uphold a moral principle (principlism). Altruism that ultimately serves selfish gains is thus differentiated from selfless altruism, but the general conclusion has been that empathy-induced altruism can be genuinely selfless. The "empathy-altruism hypothesis" states that psychological altruism exists and is evoked by the empathic desire to help someone suffering. Feelings of empathic concern are contrasted with personal distress, which compels people to reduce their unpleasant emotions and increase their positive ones by helping someone in need. Empathy is thus not selfless since altruism works either as a way to avoid those negative, unpleasant feelings and have positive, pleasant feelings when triggered by others' need for help or as a way to gain social reward or avoid social punishment by helping. People with empathic concern help others in distress even when exposure to the situation could be easily avoided, whereas those lacking in empathic concern avoid allowing it unless it is difficult or impossible to avoid exposure to another's suffering.
Helping behavior is seen in humans from about two years old when a toddler can understand subtle emotional cues. In psychological research on altruism, studies often observe altruism as demonstrated through prosocial behaviors such as helping, comforting, sharing, cooperation, philanthropy, and community service. People are most likely to help if they recognize that a person is in need and feel personal responsibility for reducing the person's distress. The number of bystanders witnessing pain or suffering affects the likelihood of helping (the "Bystander effect"). More significant numbers of bystanders decrease individual feelings of responsibility. However, a witness with a high level of empathic concern is likely to assume personal responsibility entirely regardless of the number of bystanders.
While research supports the idea that altruistic acts bring about happiness, it has also been found to work in the opposite direction—that happier people are also kinder. The relationship between altruistic behavior and happiness is bidirectional. Studies found that generosity increases linearly from sad to happy affective states. Feeling over-taxed by the needs of others has negative effects on health and happiness. For example, one study on volunteerism found that feeling overwhelmed by others' demands had an even stronger negative effect on mental health than helping had a positive one (although positive effects were still significant). Older humans were found to have higher altruism. Genetics and environment. Both genetics and environment have been implicated in influencing pro-social or altruistic behavior. Candidate genes include OXTR (polymorphisms in the oxytocin receptor), CD38, COMT, DRD4, DRD5, IGF2, AVPR1A and GABRB2. It is theorized that some of these genes influence altruistic behavior by modulating levels of neurotransmitters such as serotonin and dopamine.
According to Christopher Boehm, altruistic behaviour evolved as a way of surviving within a group. Sociology. "Sociologists have long been concerned with how to build the good society". The structure of our societies and how individuals come to exhibit charitable, philanthropic, and other pro-social, altruistic actions for the common good is a commonly researched topic within the field. The American Sociology Association (ASA) acknowledges public sociology saying, "The intrinsic scientific, policy, and public relevance of this field of investigation in helping to construct 'good societies' is unquestionable". This type of sociology seeks contributions that aid popular and theoretical understandings of what motivates altruism and how it is organized, and promotes an altruistic focus in order to benefit the world and people it studies. How altruism is framed, organized, carried out, and what motivates it at the group level is an area of focus that sociologists investigate in order to contribute back to the groups it studies and "build the good society". The motivation of altruism is also the focus of study; for example, one study links the occurrence of moral outrage to altruistic compensation of victims. Studies show that generosity in laboratory and in online experiments is contagious – people imitate the generosity they observe in others.
Religious viewpoints. Most, if not all, of the world's religions promote altruism as a very important moral value. Buddhism, Christianity, Hinduism, Islam, Jainism, Judaism, and Sikhism, etc., place particular emphasis on altruistic morality. Buddhism. Altruism figures prominently in Buddhism. Love and compassion are components of all forms of Buddhism, and are focused on all beings equally: love is the wish that all beings be happy, and compassion is the wish that all beings be free from suffering. "Many illnesses can be cured by the one medicine of love and compassion. These qualities are the ultimate source of human happiness, and the need for them lies at the very core of our being" (Dalai Lama). The notion of altruism is modified in such a world-view, since the belief is that such a practice promotes the practitioner's own happiness: "The more we care for the happiness of others, the greater our own sense of well-being becomes" (Dalai Lama). In Buddhism, a person's actions cause karma, which consists of consequences proportional to the moral implications of their actions. Deeds considered to be bad are punished, while those considered to be good are rewarded.
Jainism. The fundamental principles of Jainism revolve around altruism, not only for other humans but for all sentient beings. Jainism preaches – to live and let live, not harming sentient beings, i.e. uncompromising reverence for all life. The first , Rishabhdev, introduced the concept of altruism for all living beings, from extending knowledge and experience to others to donation, giving oneself up for others, non-violence, and compassion for all living things. The principle of nonviolence seeks to minimize karmas which limit the capabilities of the soul. Jainism views every soul as worthy of respect because it has the potential to become (God in Jainism). Because all living beings possess a soul, great care and awareness is essential in one's actions. Jainism emphasizes the equality of all life, advocating harmlessness towards all, whether the creatures are great or small. This policy extends even to microscopic organisms. Jainism acknowledges that every person has different capabilities and capacities to practice and therefore accepts different levels of compliance for ascetics and householders.
Christianity. Thomas Aquinas interprets the biblical phrase "You should love your neighbour as yourself" as meaning that love for ourselves is the exemplar of love for others. Considering that "the love with which a man loves himself is the form and root of friendship", he quotes Aristotle that "the origin of friendly relations with others lies in our relations to ourselves". Aquinas concluded that though we are not bound to love others more than ourselves, we naturally seek the common good, the good of the whole, more than any private good, the good of a part. However, he thought we should love God more than ourselves and our neighbours, and more than our bodily life—since the ultimate purpose of loving our neighbour is to share in eternal beatitude: a more desirable thing than bodily well-being. In coining the word "altruism", as stated above, Comte was probably opposing this Thomistic doctrine, which is present in some theological schools within Catholicism. The aim and focus of Christian life is a life that glorifies God, while obeying Christ's command to treat others equally, caring for them and understanding that eternity in heaven is what Jesus' Resurrection at Calvary was all about.
Many biblical authors draw a strong connection between love of others and love of God. states that for one to love God one must love his fellow man, and that hatred of one's fellow man is the same as hatred of God. Thomas Jay Oord has argued in several books that altruism is but one possible form of love. An altruistic action is not always a loving action. Oord defines altruism as acting for the other's good, and he agrees with feminists who note that sometimes love requires acting for one's own good when the other's demands undermine overall well-being. German philosopher Max Scheler distinguishes two ways in which the strong can help the weak. One way is a sincere expression of Christian love, "motivated by a powerful feeling of security, strength, and inner salvation, of the invincible fullness of one's own life and existence". Another way is merely "one of the many modern substitutes for love... nothing but the urge to turn away from oneself and to lose oneself in other people's business". At its worst, Scheler says, "love for the small, the poor, the weak, and the oppressed is really disguised hatred, repressed envy, an impulse to detract, etc., directed against the opposite phenomena: wealth, strength, power, largesse."
Islam. In the Arabic language, "" (إيثار) means "preferring others to oneself". On the topic of donating blood to non-Muslims (a controversial topic within the faith), the Shia religious professor, Fadhil al-Milani has provided theological evidence that makes it positively justifiable. In fact, he considers it a form of religious sacrifice and "ithar" (altruism). For Sufis, 'iythar means devotion to others through complete forgetfulness of one's own concerns, where concern for others is deemed as a demand made by God on the human body, considered to be property of God alone. The importance of 'iythar (also known as ) lies in sacrifice for the sake of the greater good; Islam considers those practicing as abiding by the highest degree of nobility. This is similar to the notion of chivalry. A constant concern for God results in a careful attitude towards people, animals, and other things in this world. Judaism. Judaism defines altruism as the desired goal of creation. Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook stated that love is the most important attribute in humanity. Love is defined as bestowal, or giving, which is the intention of altruism. This can be altruism towards humanity that leads to altruism towards the creator or God. Kabbalah defines God as the force of giving in existence. Rabbi Moshe Chaim Luzzatto focused on the "purpose of creation" and how the will of God was to bring creation into perfection and adhesion with this force of giving.
Modern Kabbalah developed by Rabbi Yehuda Ashlag, in his writings about the future generation, focuses on how society could achieve an altruistic social framework. Ashlag proposed that such a framework is the purpose of creation, and everything that happens is to raise humanity to the level of altruism, love for one another. Ashlag focused on society and its relation to divinity. Sikhism. Altruism is essential to the Sikh religion. The central faith in Sikhism is that the greatest deed anyone can do is to imbibe and live the godly qualities such as love, affection, sacrifice, patience, harmony, and truthfulness. , or selfless service to the community for its own sake, is an important concept in Sikhism. The fifth Guru, Guru Arjun, sacrificed his life to uphold "22 carats of pure truth, the greatest gift to humanity", according to the Guru Granth Sahib. The ninth Guru, Tegh Bahadur, sacrificed his life to protect weak and defenseless people against atrocity. In the late seventeenth century, Guru Gobind Singh (the tenth Guru in Sikhism), was at war with the Mughal rulers to protect the people of different faiths when a fellow Sikh, Bhai Kanhaiya, attended the troops of the enemy. He gave water to both friends and foes who were wounded on the battlefield. Some of the enemy began to fight again and some Sikh warriors were annoyed by Bhai Kanhaiya as he was helping their enemy. Sikh soldiers brought Bhai Kanhaiya before Guru Gobind Singh, and complained of his action that they considered counterproductive to their struggle on the battlefield. "What were you doing, and why?" asked the Guru. "I was giving water to the wounded because I saw your face in all of them", replied Bhai Kanhaiya. The Guru responded, "Then you should also give them ointment to heal their wounds. You were practicing what you were coached in the house of the Guru."
Under the tutelage of the Guru, Bhai Kanhaiya subsequently founded a volunteer corps for altruism, which is still engaged today in doing good to others and in training new recruits for this service. Hinduism. In Hinduism, selflessness (), love (), kindness (), and forgiveness () are considered as the highest acts of humanity or ". Giving alms to the beggars or poor people is considered as a divine act or " and Hindus believe it will free their souls from guilt or " and will led them to heaven or " in afterlife. Altruism is also the central act of various Hindu mythology and religious poems and songs. Mass donation of clothes to poor people (), or blood donation camp or mass food donation () for poor people is common in various Hindu religious ceremonies. The Bhagavad Gita supports the doctrine of karma yoga (achieving oneness with God through action) and Nishkama Karma or action without expectation or desire for personal gain which can be said to encompass altruism. Altruistic acts are generally celebrated and well received in Hindu literature and are central to Hindu morality.
Philosophy. There is a wide range of philosophical views on humans' obligations or motivations to act altruistically. Proponents of ethical altruism maintain that individuals are morally obligated to act altruistically. The opposing view is ethical egoism, which maintains that moral agents should always act in their own self-interest. Both ethical altruism and ethical egoism contrast with utilitarianism, which maintains that each agent should act in order to maximise the efficacy of their function and the benefit to both themselves and their co-inhabitants. A related concept in descriptive ethics is psychological egoism, the thesis that humans always act in their own self-interest and that true altruism is impossible. Rational egoism is the view that rationality consists in acting in one's self-interest (without specifying how this affects one's moral obligations). In his book "I am You: The Metaphysical Foundations for Global Ethics", Daniel Kolak argues that open individualism provides a rational basis for altruism. According to Kolak, egoism is incoherent because the concept of a future self is incoherent, similar to the idea of anattā in Buddhist philosophy, and everyone is in reality the same being. Derek Parfit made similar arguments in the book "Reasons and Persons", using thought experiments such as the teletransportation paradox to illustrate the philosophical problems with personal identity.
Effective altruism. Effective altruism is a philosophy and social movement that uses evidence and reasoning to determine the most effective ways to benefit others. Effective altruism encourages individuals to consider all causes and actions and to act in the way that brings about the greatest positive impact, based upon their values. It is the broad, evidence-based, and cause-neutral approach that distinguishes effective altruism from traditional altruism or charity. Effective altruism is part of the larger movement towards evidence-based practices. While a substantial proportion of effective altruists have focused on the nonprofit sector, the philosophy of effective altruism applies more broadly to prioritizing the scientific projects, companies, and policy initiatives which can be estimated to save lives, help people, or otherwise have the biggest benefit. People associated with the movement include philosopher Peter Singer, Facebook co founder Dustin Moskovitz, Cari Tuna, Oxford-based researchers William MacAskill and Toby Ord, and professional poker player Liv Boeree.
Extreme altruism. Pathological altruism. Pathological altruism is altruism taken to an unhealthy extreme, such that it either harms the altruistic person or the person's well-intentioned actions cause more harm than good. The term "pathological altruism" was popularised by the book "Pathological Altruism". Examples include depression and burnout seen in healthcare professionals, an unhealthy focus on others to the detriment of one's own needs, animal hoarding, and ineffective philanthropic and social programs that ultimately worsen the situations they are meant to aid. Extreme altruism also known as costly altruism, extraordinary altruism, or heroic behaviours (shall be distinguished from heroism), refers to selfless acts directed to a stranger which significantly exceed the normal altruistic behaviours, often involving risks or great cost to the altruists themselves. Since acts of extreme altruism are often directed towards strangers, many commonly accepted models of simple altruism appear inadequate in explaining this phenomenon.
One of the initial concepts was introduced by Wilson in 1976, which he referred to as "hard-core" altruism. This form is characterised by impulsive actions directed towards others, typically a stranger and lacking incentives for reward. Since then, several papers have mentioned the possibility of such altruism. In 21st century the progress in the field slowed down due to adopting ethical guidelines that restrict exposing research participants to costly or risky decisions (see Declaration of Helsinki). Consequently, much research has based their studies on living organ donations and the actions of Carnegie Hero medal Recipients, actions which involve high risk, high cost, and are of infrequent occurrences. A typical example of extreme altruism would be non-directed kidney donation—a living person donating one of their kidneys to a stranger without any benefits or knowing the recipient. However, current research can only be carried out on a small population that meets the requirements of extreme altruism. Most of the time the research is also via the form of self-report which could lead to self-report biases. Due to the limitations, the current gap between high stakes and normal altruism remains unknown.
Characteristics of extreme altruists. In 1970, Schwartz hypothesised that extreme altruism is positively related to a person's moral norms and is not influenced by the cost associated with the action. This hypothesis was supported in the same study examining bone marrow donors. Schwartz discovered that individuals with strong personal norms and those who attribute more responsibility to themselves are more inclined to participate in bone marrow donation. Similar findings were observed in a 1986 study by Piliavin and Libby focusing on blood donors. These studies suggest that personal norms lead to the activation of moral norms, leading individuals to feel compelled to help others. Abigail Marsh has described psychopaths as the "opposite" group of people to extreme altruists and has conducted a few research, comparing these two groups of individuals. Utilising techniques such as brain imaging and behavioural experiments, Marsh's team observed that kidney donors tend to have larger amygdala sizes and exhibit better abilities in recognizing fearful expressions compared to psychopathic individuals. Furthermore, an improved ability to recognize fear has been associated with an increase in prosocial behaviours, including greater charity contribution.
Rand and Epstein explored the behaviours of 51 Carnegie Hero Medal Recipients, demonstrating how extreme altruistic behaviours often stem from system I of the Dual Process Theory, which leads to rapid and intuitive behaviours. Additionally, a separate by Carlson et al. indicated that such prosocial behaviours are prevalent in emergencies where immediate actions are required. This discovery has led to ethical debates, particularly in the context of living organ donation, where laws regarding this issue differ by country. As observed in extreme altruists, these decisions are made intuitively, which may reflect insufficient consideration. Critics are concerned about whether this rapid decision encompasses a thorough cost-benefit analysis and question the appropriateness of exposing donors to such risk. One finding suggests how extreme altruists exhibit lower levels of social discounting as compared to others. With that meaning extreme altruists place a higher value on the welfare of strangers than a typical person does.
Analysis of 676 Carnegie Hero Award Recipients and another study on 243 rescuing acts reveal that a significant proportion of rescuers come from lower socio-economic backgrounds. Johnson attributes the distribution to the high-risk occupations that are more prevalent between lower socioeconomic groups. Another hypothesis proposed by Lyons is that individuals from these groups may perceive they have less to lose when engaging in high-risk extreme altruistic behaviours. Possible explanations. Evolutionary theories such as the kin-selection, reciprocity, vested interest and punishment either contradict or do not fully explain the concept of extreme altruism. As a result, considerable research has attempted for a separate explanation for this behaviour. Research suggests that males are more likely to engage in heroic and risk-taking behaviours due to a preference among females for such traits. These extreme altruistic behaviours could serve to act as an unconscious "signal" to showcase superior power and ability compared to ordinary individuals. When an extreme altruist survives a high-risk situation, they send an "honest signal" of quality. Three qualities hypothesized to be exhibited by extreme altruists, which could be interpreted as "signals", are: (1) traits that are difficult to fake, (2) a willingness to help, and (3) generous behaviours.
The empathy altruism hypothesis appears to align with the concept of extreme altruism without contradiction. The hypothesis was supported with further brain scanning research, which indicates how this group of people demonstrate a higher level of empathy concern. The level of empathy concern then triggers activation in specific brain regions, urging the individual to engage in heroic behaviours. While most altruistic behaviours offer some form of benefit, extreme altruism may sometimes result from a mistake where the victim does not reciprocate. Considering the impulsive characteristic of extreme altruists, some researchers suggest that these individuals have made a wrong judgement during the cost-benefit analysis. Furthermore, extreme altruism might be a rare variation of altruism where they lie towards to ends of a normal distribution. In the US, the annual prevalence rate per capita is less than 0.00005%, this shows the rarity of such behaviours. Digital altruism. Digital altruism is the notion that some are willing to freely share information based on the principle of reciprocity and in the belief that in the end, everyone benefits from sharing information via the Internet. There are three types of digital altruism: (1) "everyday digital altruism", involving expedience, ease, moral engagement, and conformity; (2) "creative digital altruism", involving creativity, heightened moral engagement, and cooperation; and (3) "co-creative digital altruism" involving creativity, moral engagement, and meta cooperative efforts.
Ayn Rand Alice O'Connor (born Alisa Zinovyevna Rosenbaum; , 1905March 6, 1982), better known by her pen name Ayn Rand (), was a Russian-American writer and philosopher. She is known for her fiction and for developing a philosophical system which she named "Objectivism". Born and educated in Russia, she moved to the United States in 1926. After two early novels that were initially unsuccessful and two Broadway plays, Rand achieved fame with her 1943 novel "The Fountainhead". In 1957, she published her best-selling work, the novel "Atlas Shrugged". Afterward, until her death in 1982, she turned to non-fiction to promote her philosophy, publishing her own periodicals and releasing several collections of essays. Rand advocated reason and rejected faith and religion. She supported rational and ethical egoism as opposed to altruism and hedonism. In politics, she condemned the initiation of force as immoral and supported "laissez-faire" capitalism, which she defined as the system based on recognizing individual rights, including private property rights. Although she opposed libertarianism, which she viewed as anarchism, Rand is often associated with the modern libertarian movement in the United States. In art, she promoted romantic realism. She was sharply critical of most philosophers and philosophical traditions known to her, with a few exceptions.
Rand's books have sold over 37 million copies. Her fiction received mixed reviews from literary critics, with reviews becoming more negative for her later work. Although academic interest in her ideas has grown since her death, academic philosophers have generally ignored or rejected Rand's philosophy, arguing that she has a polemical approach and that her work lacks methodological rigor. Her writings have politically influenced some right-libertarians and conservatives. The Objectivist movement circulates her ideas, both to the public and in academic settings. Life and career. Early life. Rand was born Alisa Zinovyevna Rosenbaum on February2, 1905, into a Jewish bourgeois family living in Saint Petersburg, which was then the capital of the Russian Empire. She was the eldest of three daughters of Zinovy Zakharovich Rosenbaum, a pharmacist, and Anna Borisovna (). She was 12 when the October Revolution and the rule of the Bolsheviks under Vladimir Lenin disrupted her family's lives. Her father's pharmacy was nationalized, and the family fled to Yevpatoria in Crimea, which was initially under the control of the White Army during the Russian Civil War. After graduating high school there in June 1921, she returned with her family to Petrograd, as Saint Petersburg was then named, where they faced desperate conditions, occasionally nearly starving.
After the Russian Revolution opened up Russian universities to women, Rand was among the first to enroll at Petrograd State University, now Saint Petersburg State University. At 16, she began her studies in the department of social pedagogy, majoring in history. She was one of many bourgeois students purged from the university shortly before graduating. After complaints from a group of visiting foreign scientists, many purged students, including Rand, were reinstated. In October 1924, she graduated from the renamed Leningrad State University. She then studied for a year at the State Technicum for Screen Arts in Leningrad. For an assignment, Rand wrote an essay about the Polish actress Pola Negri. It became her first published work. She decided her professional surname for writing would be "Rand", and she adopted the first name "Ayn" (pronounced ). In late 1925, Rand was granted a visa to visit relatives in Chicago. She arrived in New York City on February19, 1926. Intent on staying in the United States to become a screenwriter, she lived for a few months with her relatives learning English before moving to Hollywood, California.
In Hollywood a chance meeting with director Cecil B. DeMille led to work as an extra in his film "The King of Kings" and a subsequent job as a junior screenwriter. While working on "The King of Kings", she met the aspiring actor Frank O'Connor. They married on April15, 1929. She became a permanent American resident in July 1929 and an American citizen on March3, 1931. She tried to bring her parents and sisters to the United States, but they could not obtain permission to emigrate. Rand's father died of a heart attack in 1939. One of her sisters and their mother died during the siege of Leningrad. Early fiction. In 1932, Rand's first literary success was the sale of her screenplay "Red Pawn" to Universal Studios, although it was never produced. Her courtroom drama "Night of January 16th", first staged in Hollywood in 1934, reopened successfully on Broadway in 1935. Each night, a jury was selected from members of the audience. Based on its vote, one of two different endings would be performed. In December 1934, Rand and O'Connor moved to New York City so she could handle revisions for the Broadway production.
In 1936, her first novel was published, the semi-autobiographical "We the Living". Set in Soviet Russia, it focuses on the struggle between the individual and the state. Initial sales were slow, and the American publisher let it go out of print; however, European editions continued to sell. She adapted the story as a stage play, but the Broadway production closed in less than a week. After the success of her later novels, Rand released a revised version in 1959 that has sold over three million copies. In December 1935, Rand started her next major novel, "The Fountainhead", but took a break from it in 1937 to write her novella "Anthem". The novella presents a dystopian future world in which totalitarian collectivism has triumphed to such an extent that the word "I" has been forgotten and replaced with "we". Protagonists Equality 7-2521 and Liberty 5-3000 eventually escape the collectivistic society and rediscover the word "I". It was published in England in 1938, but Rand could not find an American publisher at that time. As with "We the Living", Rand's later success allowed her to get a revised version published in 1946, and this sold over 3.5million copies.
"The Fountainhead" and political activism. In the 1940s, Rand became politically active. She and her husband were full-time volunteers for Republican Wendell Willkie's 1940 presidential campaign. This work put her in contact with other intellectuals sympathetic to free-market capitalism. She became friends with journalist Henry Hazlitt, who introduced her to the Austrian School economist Ludwig von Mises. Despite philosophical differences with them, Rand strongly endorsed the writings of both men, and they expressed admiration for her. Mises once called her "the most courageous man in America", a compliment that particularly pleased her because he said "man" instead of "woman". Rand became friends with libertarian writer Isabel Paterson. Rand questioned her about American history and politics during their many meetings, and gave Paterson ideas for her only non-fiction book, "The God of the Machine". In 1943, Rand's first major success as a writer came with "The Fountainhead", a novel about an uncompromising architect named Howard Roark and his struggle against what Rand described as "second-handers" who attempt to live through others, placing others above themselves. Twelve publishers rejected it before Bobbs-Merrill Company accepted it at the insistence of editor Archibald Ogden, who threatened to quit if his employer did not publish it.
While completing the novel, Rand was prescribed Benzedrine, an amphetamine, to fight fatigue. The drug helped her to work long hours to meet her deadline for delivering the novel, but afterwards she was so exhausted that her doctor ordered two weeks' rest. Her use of the drug for approximately three decades may have contributed to mood swings and outbursts described by some of her later associates. The success of "The Fountainhead" brought Rand fame and financial security. In 1943, she sold the film rights to Warner Bros. and returned to Hollywood to write the screenplay. Producer Hal B. Wallis then hired her as a screenwriter and script-doctor for screenplays including "Love Letters" and "You Came Along". Rand became involved with the anti-Communist Motion Picture Alliance for the Preservation of American Ideals and American Writers Association. In 1947, during the Second Red Scare, she testified as a "friendly witness" before the United States House Un-American Activities Committee that the 1944 film "Song of Russia" grossly misrepresented conditions in the Soviet Union, portraying life there as much better and happier than it was. She also wanted to criticize the lauded 1946 film "The Best Years of Our Lives" for what she interpreted as its negative presentation of the business world but was not allowed to do so. When asked after the hearings about her feelings on the investigations' effectiveness, Rand described the process as "futile".
In 1949, after several delays, the film version of "The Fountainhead" was released. Although it used Rand's screenplay with minimal alterations, she "disliked the movie from beginning to end" and complained about its editing, the acting and other elements. "Atlas Shrugged" and Objectivism. Following the publication of "The Fountainhead", Rand received many letters from readers, some of whom the book had influenced profoundly. In 1951, Rand moved from Los Angeles to New York City, where she gathered a group of these admirers who met at Rand's apartment on weekends to discuss philosophy. The group included future chair of the Federal Reserve Alan Greenspan, a young psychology student named Nathan Blumenthal (later Nathaniel Branden) and his wife Barbara, and Barbara's cousin Leonard Peikoff. Later, Rand began allowing them to read the manuscript drafts of her new novel, "Atlas Shrugged". In 1954, her close relationship with Nathaniel Branden turned into a romantic affair. They informed both their spouses, who briefly objected, until Rand "sp[u]n out a deductive chain from which you just couldn't escape", in Barbara Branden's words, resulting in her and O'Connor's assent. Historian Jennifer Burns concludes that O'Connor was likely "the hardest hit" emotionally by the affair.
Published in 1957, "Atlas Shrugged" is considered Rand's "magnum opus". She described the novel's theme as "the role of the mind in man's existence—and, as a corollary, the demonstration of a new moral philosophy: the morality of rational self-interest". It advocates the core tenets of Rand's philosophy of Objectivism and expresses her concept of human achievement. The plot involves a dystopian United States in which the most creative industrialists, scientists, and artists respond to a welfare state government by going on strike and retreating to a hidden valley where they build an independent free economy. The novel's hero and leader of the strike, John Galt, describes it as stopping "the motor of the world" by withdrawing the minds of individuals contributing most to the nation's wealth and achievements. The novel contains an exposition of Objectivism in a lengthy monologue delivered by Galt. Despite many negative reviews, "Atlas Shrugged" became an international bestseller, but the reaction of intellectuals to the novel discouraged and depressed Rand. "Atlas Shrugged" was her last completed work of fiction, marking the end of her career as a novelist and the beginning of her role as a popular philosopher.
In 1958, Nathaniel Branden established the Nathaniel Branden Lectures, later incorporated as the Nathaniel Branden Institute (NBI), to promote Rand's philosophy through public lectures. In 1962, he and Rand co-founded "The Objectivist Newsletter" (later renamed "The Objectivist") to circulate articles about her ideas. She later republished some of these articles in book form. Rand was unimpressed by many of the NBI students and held them to strict standards, sometimes reacting coldly or angrily to those who disagreed with her. Critics, including some former NBI students and Branden himself, later said the NBI culture was one of intellectual conformity and excessive reverence for Rand. Some described the NBI or the Objectivist movement as a cult or religion. Rand expressed opinions on a wide range of topics, from literature and music to sexuality and facial hair. Some of her followers mimicked her preferences, wearing clothes to match characters from her novels and buying furniture like hers. Some former NBI students believed the extent of these behaviors was exaggerated, and the problem was concentrated among Rand's closest followers in New York.
Later years. In the 1960s and 1970s, Rand developed and promoted her Objectivist philosophy through nonfiction and speeches, including annual lectures at the Ford Hall Forum. In answers to audience questions, she took controversial stances on political and social issues. These included supporting abortion rights, opposing the Vietnam War and the military draft (but condemning many draft dodgers as "bums"), supporting Israel in the Yom Kippur War of 1973 against a coalition of Arab nations as "civilized men fighting savages", claiming European colonists had the right to invade and take land inhabited by American Indians, and calling homosexuality "immoral" and "disgusting", despite advocating the repeal of all laws concerning it. She endorsed several Republican candidates for president of the United States, most strongly Barry Goldwater in 1964. In 1964, Nathaniel Branden began an affair with the young actress Patrecia Scott, whom he later married. Nathaniel and Barbara Branden kept the affair hidden from Rand. As her relationship with Nathaniel Branden deteriorated, Rand had her husband be present for difficult conversations between her and Branden. In 1968, Rand learned about Branden's relationship with Scott. Though her romantic involvement with Nathaniel Branden was already over, Rand ended her relationship with both Brandens, and the NBI closed. She published an article in "The Objectivist" repudiating Nathaniel Branden for dishonesty and "irrational behavior in his private life". In subsequent years, Rand and several more of her closest associates parted company.
In 1973, Rand's younger sister Eleonora Drobisheva (née "Rosenbaum", 1910–1999) visited her in the US at Rand's invitation, but did not accept her lifestyle and views, as well as finding little literary merit in her works. She returned to the Soviet Union and spent the rest of her life in Leningrad, later Saint Petersburg. In 1974, Rand had surgery for lung cancer after decades of heavy smoking. In 1976, she retired from her newsletter and, despite her lifelong objections to any government-run program, was enrolled in and claimed Social Security and Medicare with the aid of a social worker. Her activities in the Objectivist movement declined, especially after her husband died on November9, 1979. One of her final projects was a never-completed television adaptation of "Atlas Shrugged". On March6, 1982, Rand died of heart failure at her home in New York City. Her funeral included a floral arrangement in the shape of a dollar sign. In her will, Rand named Peikoff as her heir. Literary approach, influences and reception.
Rand described her approach to literature as "romantic realism". She wanted her fiction to present the world "as it could be and should be", rather than as it was. This approach led her to create highly stylized situations and characters. Her fiction typically has protagonists who are heroic individualists, depicted as fit and attractive. Her villains support duty and collectivist moral ideals. Rand often describes them as unattractive, and some have names that suggest negative traits, such as Wesley Mouch in "Atlas Shrugged". Rand considered plot a critical element of literature, and her stories typically have what biographer Anne Heller described as "tight, elaborate, fast-paced plotting". Romantic triangles are a common plot element in Rand's fiction; in most of her novels and plays, the main female character is romantically involved with at least two men. Influences. In school, Rand read works by Fyodor Dostoevsky, Victor Hugo, Edmond Rostand, and Friedrich Schiller, who became her favorites. She considered them to be among the "top rank" of Romantic writers because of their focus on moral themes and their skill at constructing plots. Hugo was an important influence on her writing, especially her approach to plotting. In the introduction she wrote for an English-language edition of his novel "Ninety-Three", Rand called him "the greatest novelist in world literature".
Although Rand disliked most Russian literature, her depictions of her heroes show the influence of the Russian Symbolists and other nineteenth-century Russian writing, most notably the 1863 novel "What Is to Be Done?" by Nikolay Chernyshevsky. Scholars of Russian literature see in Chernyshevsky's character Rakhmetov, an "ascetic revolutionist", the template for Rand's literary heroes and heroines. Rand's experience of the Russian Revolution and early Communist Russia influenced the portrayal of her villains. Beyond "We the Living", which is set in Russia, this influence can be seen in the ideas and rhetoric of Ellsworth Toohey in "The Fountainhead", and in the destruction of the economy in "Atlas Shrugged". Rand's descriptive style echoes her early career writing scenarios and scripts for movies; her novels have many narrative descriptions that resemble early Hollywood movie scenarios. They often follow common film editing conventions, such as having a broad establishing shot description of a scene followed by close-up details, and her descriptions of women characters often take a "male gaze" perspective.
Contemporary reviews. The first reviews Rand received were for "Night of January 16th". Reviews of the Broadway production were largely positive, but Rand considered even positive reviews to be embarrassing because of significant changes made to her script by the producer. Although Rand believed that "We the Living" was not widely reviewed, over 200 publications published approximately 125 different reviews. Overall, they were more positive than those she received for her later work. "Anthem" received little review attention, both for its first publication in England and for subsequent re-issues. Rand's first bestseller, "The Fountainhead", received far fewer reviews than "We the Living", and reviewers' opinions were mixed. Lorine Pruette's positive review in "The New York Times", which called the author "a writer of great power" who wrote "brilliantly, beautifully and bitterly", was one that Rand greatly appreciated. There were other positive reviews, but Rand dismissed most of them for either misunderstanding her message or for being in unimportant publications. Some negative reviews said the novel was too long; others called the characters unsympathetic and Rand's style "offensively pedestrian".
"Atlas Shrugged" was widely reviewed, and many of the reviews were strongly negative. "Atlas Shrugged" received positive reviews from a few publications; however, Rand scholar Mimi Reisel Gladstein later wrote that "reviewers seemed to vie with each other in a contest to devise the cleverest put-downs", with reviews including comments that it was "written out of hate" and showed "remorseless hectoring and prolixity". Whittaker Chambers wrote what was later called the novel's most "notorious" review for the conservative magazine "National Review". He accused Rand of supporting a godless system (which he related to that of the Soviets), claiming, "From almost any page of "Atlas Shrugged", a voice can be heard ... commanding: 'To a gas chamber—go!. Rand's nonfiction received far fewer reviews than her novels. The tenor of the criticism for her first nonfiction book, "For the New Intellectual", was similar to that for "Atlas Shrugged". Philosopher Sidney Hook likened her certainty to "the way philosophy is written in the Soviet Union", and author Gore Vidal called her viewpoint "nearly perfect in its immorality". These reviews set the pattern for reaction to her ideas among liberal critics. Her subsequent books got progressively less review attention.
Academic assessments of Rand's fiction. Academic consideration of Rand as a literary figure during her life was limited. Mimi Reisel Gladstein could not find any scholarly articles about Rand's novels when she began researching her in 1973, and only three such articles appeared during the rest of the 1970s. Since her death, scholars of English and American literature have continued largely to ignore her work, although attention to her literary work has increased since the 1990s. Several academic book series about important authors cover Rand and her works, as do popular study guides like CliffsNotes and SparkNotes. In "The Literary Encyclopedia" entry for Rand written in 2001, John David Lewis declared that "Rand wrote the most intellectually challenging fiction of her generation." In 2019, Lisa Duggan described Rand's fiction as popular and influential on many readers, despite being easy to criticize for "her cartoonish characters and melodramatic plots, her rigid moralizing, her middle- to lowbrow aesthetic preferences... and philosophical strivings".
Philosophy. Rand called her philosophy "Objectivism", describing its essence as "the concept of man as a heroic being, with his own happiness as the moral purpose of his life, with productive achievement as his noblest activity, and reason as his only absolute". She considered Objectivism a systematic philosophy and laid out positions on metaphysics, epistemology, ethics, aesthetics, and political philosophy. Metaphysics and epistemology. In metaphysics, Rand supported philosophical realism and opposed anything she regarded as mysticism or supernaturalism, including all forms of religion. Rand believed in free will as a form of agent causation and rejected determinism. Rand also related her aesthetics to metaphysics by defining art as a "selective re-creation of reality according to an artist's metaphysical value-judgments". According to her, art allows philosophical concepts to be presented in a concrete form that can be grasped easily, thereby fulfilling a need of human consciousness. As a writer, the art form Rand focused on most closely was literature. In works such as "The Romantic Manifesto" and "", she described Romanticism as the approach that most accurately reflects the existence of human free will.
In epistemology, Rand considered all knowledge to be based on forming higher levels of understanding from sense perception, the validity of which she considered axiomatic. She described reason as "the faculty that identifies and integrates the material provided by man's senses". Rand rejected all claims of non-perceptual knowledge, including instinct,' 'intuition,' 'revelation,' or any form of 'just knowing. In her "Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology", Rand presented a theory of concept formation and rejected the analytic–synthetic dichotomy. She believed epistemology was a foundational branch of philosophy and considered the advocacy of reason to be the single most significant aspect of her philosophy. Commentators, including Hazel Barnes, Nathaniel Branden, and Albert Ellis, have criticized Rand's focus on the importance of reason. Barnes and Ellis said Rand was too dismissive of emotion and failed to recognize its importance in human life. Branden said Rand's emphasis on reason led her to denigrate emotions and create unrealistic expectations of how consistently rational human beings should be.
Ethics and politics. In ethics, Rand argued for rational and ethical egoism (rational self-interest), as the guiding moral principle. She said the individual should "exist for his own sake, neither sacrificing himself to others nor sacrificing others to himself". Rand referred to egoism as "the virtue of selfishness" in her book of that title. In it, she presented her solution to the is–ought problem by describing a meta-ethical theory that based morality in the needs of "man's survival qua man", which requires the use of a rational mind. She condemned ethical altruism as incompatible with the requirements of human life and happiness, and held the initiation of force was evil and irrational, writing in "Atlas Shrugged" that "Force and mind are opposites". Rand's ethics and politics are the most criticized areas of her philosophy. Several authors, including Robert Nozick and William F. O'Neill in two of the earliest academic critiques of her ideas, said she failed in her attempt to solve the is–ought problem. Critics have called her definitions of "egoism" and "altruism" biased and inconsistent with normal usage. Critics from religious traditions oppose her atheism and her rejection of altruism.
Rand's political philosophy emphasized individual rights, including property rights. She considered "laissez-faire" capitalism the only moral social system because in her view it was the only system based on protecting those rights. Rand opposed collectivism and statism, which she considered to include many specific forms of government, such as communism, fascism, socialism, theocracy, and the welfare state. Her preferred form of government was a constitutional republic that is limited to the protection of individual rights. Although her political views are often classified as conservative or libertarian, Rand preferred the term "radical for capitalism". She worked with conservatives on political projects but disagreed with them over issues such as religion and ethics. Rand rejected anarchism as a naive theory based in subjectivism that would lead to collectivism in practice, and denounced libertarianism, which she associated with anarchism. Several critics, including Nozick, have said her attempt to justify individual rights based on egoism fails. Others, like libertarian philosopher Michael Huemer, have gone further, saying that her support of egoism and her support of individual rights are inconsistent positions. Some critics, like Roy Childs, have said that her opposition to the initiation of force should lead to support of anarchism, rather than limited government.
Relationship to other philosophers. Except for Aristotle, Thomas Aquinas and classical liberals, Rand was sharply critical of most philosophers and philosophical traditions known to her. Acknowledging Aristotle as her greatest influence, Rand remarked that in the history of philosophy she could only recommend "three A's"—Aristotle, Aquinas, and Ayn Rand. In a 1959 interview with Mike Wallace, when asked where her philosophy came from, she responded: "Out of my own mind, with the sole acknowledgement of a debt to Aristotle, the only philosopher who ever influenced me." In an article for the "Claremont Review of Books", political scientist Charles Murray criticized Rand's claim that her only "philosophical debt" was to Aristotle. He asserted her ideas were derivative of previous thinkers such as John Locke and Friedrich Nietzsche. Rand took early inspiration from Nietzsche, and scholars have found indications of this in Rand's private journals. In 1928, she alluded to his idea of the "superman" in notes for an unwritten novel whose protagonist was inspired by the murderer William Edward Hickman.
There are other indications of Nietzsche's influence in passages from the first edition of "We the Living", which Rand later revised, and in her overall writing style. By the time she wrote "The Fountainhead", Rand had turned against Nietzsche's ideas, and the extent of his influence on her even during her early years is disputed. Rand's views also may have been influenced by the promotion of egoism among the Russian nihilists, including Chernyshevsky and Dmitry Pisarev, although there is no direct evidence that she read them. Rand considered Immanuel Kant her philosophical opposite and "the most evil man in mankind's history". She believed his epistemology undermined reason and his ethics opposed self-interest. Philosophers George Walsh and Fred Seddon have argued she misinterpreted Kant and exaggerated their differences. She was critical of Plato and viewed his differences with Aristotle on questions of metaphysics and epistemology as the primary conflict in the history of philosophy. Rand's relationship with contemporary philosophers was mostly antagonistic. She was not an academic and did not participate in academic discourse. She was dismissive of critics and wrote about ideas she disagreed with in a polemical manner without in-depth analysis. Academic philosophers viewed her negatively and dismissed her as an unimportant figure who should not be considered a philosopher, or given any serious response.
Early academic reaction. During Rand's lifetime, her work received little attention from academic scholars. In 1967, John Hospers discussed Rand's ethical ideas in the second edition of his textbook, "An Introduction to Philosophical Analysis". In 1967, Hazel Barnes included a chapter critiquing Objectivism in her book "An Existentialist Ethics". When the first full-length academic book about Rand's philosophy appeared in 1971, its author declared writing about Rand "a treacherous undertaking" that could lead to "guilt by association" for taking her seriously. A few articles about Rand's ideas appeared in academic journals before her death in 1982, many of them in "The Personalist". One of these was "On the Randian Argument" by libertarian philosopher Robert Nozick, who criticized her meta-ethical arguments. In the same journal, other philosophers argued that Nozick misstated Rand's case. In an 1978 article responding to Nozick, Douglas Den Uyl and Douglas B. Rasmussen defended her positions, but described her style as "literary, hyperbolic and emotional".
After her death, interest in Rand's ideas increased gradually. "The Philosophic Thought of Ayn Rand", a 1984 collection of essays about Objectivism edited by Den Uyl and Rasmussen, was the first academic book about Rand's ideas published after her death. In one essay, political writer Jack Wheeler wrote that despite "the incessant bombast and continuous venting of Randian rage", Rand's ethics are "a most immense achievement, the study of which is vastly more fruitful than any other in contemporary thought". In 1987, the Ayn Rand Society was founded as an affiliate of the American Philosophical Association. In a 1995 entry about Rand in "Contemporary Women Philosophers", Jenny A. Heyl described a divergence in how different academic specialties viewed Rand. She said that Rand's philosophy "is regularly omitted from academic philosophy. Yet, throughout literary academia, Ayn Rand is considered a philosopher." Writing in the 1998 edition of the "Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy", political theorist Chandran Kukathas summarized the mainstream philosophical reception of her work in two parts. He said most commentators view her ethical argument as an unconvincing variant of Aristotle's ethics, and her political theory "is of little interest" because it is marred by an "ill-thought out and unsystematic" effort to reconcile her hostility to the state with her rejection of anarchism. In 1999, "The Journal of Ayn Rand Studies", a peer-reviewed, multidisciplinary academic journal devoted to the study of Rand and her ideas, was established. 21st-century academic reaction.
In 2009, historian Jennifer Burns identified "an explosion of scholarship" about Rand since 2000; however, as of that year, few universities included Rand or Objectivism as a philosophical specialty or research area. From 2002 to 2012, over 60 colleges and universities accepted grants from the charitable foundation of BB&T that required teaching Rand's ideas or works. In some cases, the grants were controversial or even rejected because of the requirement to teach about Rand. In a 2010 essay for the Cato Institute, Huemer argued very few people find Rand's ideas convincing, especially her ethics. He attributed the attention she receives to her being a "compelling writer", especially as a novelist. In 2012, the Pennsylvania State University Press agreed to take over publication of "The Journal of Ayn Rand Studies", and the University of Pittsburgh Press launched an "Ayn Rand Society Philosophical Studies" series based on the Society's proceedings. The Fall 2012 update to the entry about Rand in the "Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy" said that "only a few professional philosophers have taken her work seriously".
In 2012, political scientist Alan Wolfe dismissed Rand as a "nonperson" among academics, an attitude that writer Ben Murnane later described as "the traditional academic view" of Rand. In a 2018 article for "Aeon", philosopher Skye C. Cleary wrote: "Philosophers love to hate Ayn Rand. It's trendy to scoff at any mention of her." However, Cleary said that because many people take Rand's ideas seriously, philosophers "need to treat the Ayn Rand phenomenon seriously" and provide refutations rather than ignoring her. in 2020, Media critic Eric Burns said that "Rand is surely the most engaging philosopher of my lifetime", but "nobody in the academe pays any attention to her, neither as an author nor a philosopher". In 2020, the editor of a collection of critical essays about Rand said academics who disapproved of her ideas had long held "a stubborn resolve to ignore or ridicule" her work but that more were engaging with her work in recent years. In 2023, "The Journal of Ayn Rand Studies" ceased publication. Legacy.
Popular interest. With over 37million copies sold , Rand's books continue to be read widely. In 1991, a survey conducted for the Library of Congress and the Book of the Month Club asked club members to name the most influential book in their lives. Rand's "Atlas Shrugged" was the second most popular choice, after the Bible. Although Rand's influence has been greatest in the United States, there has been international interest in her work. Rand's contemporary admirers included fellow novelists, like Ira Levin, Kay Nolte Smith and L. Neil Smith. She influenced later writers like Erika Holzer, Terry Goodkind, and comic book artist Steve Ditko. Rand provided a positive view of business and subsequently many business executives and entrepreneurs have admired and promoted her work. Businessmen such as John Allison of BB&T and Ed Snider of Comcast Spectacor have funded the promotion of Rand's ideas. Television shows, movies, songs, and video games have referred to Rand and her works. Throughout her life she was the subject of many articles in popular magazines, as well as book-length critiques by authors such as the psychologist Albert Ellis and Trinity Foundation president John W. Robbins. Rand or characters based on her figure prominently in novels by American authors, including Kay Nolte Smith, Mary Gaitskill, Matt Ruff, and Tobias Wolff. Nick Gillespie, former editor-in-chief of "Reason", remarked: "Rand's is a tortured immortality, one in which she's as likely to be a punch line as a protagonist. Jibes at Rand as cold and inhuman run through the popular culture."
Two movies have been made about Rand's life. A 1997 documentary film, "", was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature. "The Passion of Ayn Rand", a 1999 television adaptation of the book of the same name, won several awards. Rand's image appears on a 1999 U.S. postage stamp illustrated by artist Nick Gaetano. Rand's works, most commonly "Anthem" or "The Fountainhead", are sometimes assigned as secondary school reading. Since 2002, the Ayn Rand Institute has provided free copies of Rand's novels to teachers who promise to include the books in their curriculum. The Institute had distributed 4.5million copies in the U.S. and Canada by the end of 2020. In 2017, Rand was added to the required reading list for the A Level Politics exam in the United Kingdom. Political influence. Although she rejected the labels "conservative" and "libertarian", Rand has had a continuing influence on right-wing politics and libertarianism. Rand is often considered one of the three most important women, along with Rose Wilder Lane and Isabel Paterson, in the early development of modern American libertarianism. David Nolan, one founder of the Libertarian Party, said that "without Ayn Rand, the libertarian movement would not exist". In his history of libertarianism, journalist Brian Doherty described her as "the most influential libertarian of the twentieth century to the public at large". Political scientist Andrew Koppelman called her "the most widely read libertarian". Historian Jennifer Burns referred to her as "the ultimate gateway drug to life on the right".
The political figures who cite Rand as an influence are usually conservatives, often members of the Republican Party, despite Rand taking some atypical positions for a conservative, like being pro-choice and an atheist. She faced intense opposition from William F. Buckley Jr. and other contributors to the conservative "National Review" magazine, which published numerous criticisms of her writings and ideas. Nevertheless, a 1987 article in "The New York Times" called her the Reagan administration's "novelist laureate". Republican congressmen and conservative pundits have acknowledged her influence on their lives and have recommended her novels. She has influenced some conservative politicians outside the U.S., such as Sajid Javid in the United Kingdom, Siv Jensen in Norway, and Ayelet Shaked in Israel. The 2008 financial crisis renewed interest in her works, especially "Atlas Shrugged", which some saw as foreshadowing the crisis. Opinion articles compared real-world events with the novel's plot. Signs mentioning Rand and her fictional hero John Galt appeared at Tea Party protests. There was increased criticism of her ideas, especially from the political left. Critics blamed the Great Recession on her support of selfishness and free markets, particularly through her influence on Alan Greenspan.
In 2015, Adam Weiner said that through Greenspan, "Rand had effectively chucked a ticking time bomb into the boiler room of the US economy". In 2019, Lisa Duggan said that Rand's novels had "incalculable impact" in encouraging the spread of neoliberal political ideas. In 2021, Cass Sunstein said Rand's ideas could be seen in the tax and regulatory policies of the Trump administration, which he attributed to the "enduring influence" of Rand's fiction. Objectivist movement. After the closure of the Nathaniel Branden Institute, the Objectivist movement continued in other forms. In the 1970s, Peikoff began delivering courses on Objectivism. In 1979, Peter Schwartz started a newsletter called "The Intellectual Activist", which Rand endorsed. She also endorsed "The Objectivist Forum", a bimonthly magazine founded by Objectivist philosopher Harry Binswanger, which ran from 1980 to 1987. In 1985, Peikoff worked with businessman Ed Snider to establish the Ayn Rand Institute, a nonprofit organization dedicated to promoting Rand's ideas and works. In 1990, after an ideological disagreement with Peikoff, David Kelley founded the Institute for Objectivist Studies, now known as The Atlas Society. In 2001, historian John P. McCaskey organized the Anthem Foundation for Objectivist Scholarship, which provides grants for scholarly work on Objectivism in academia. Selected works. Fiction and drama Non-fiction
Alain Connes Alain Connes (; born 1 April 1947) is a French mathematician, known for his contributions to the study of operator algebras and noncommutative geometry. He was a professor at the , , Ohio State University and Vanderbilt University. He was awarded the Fields Medal in 1982. Career. Alain Connes attended high school at in Marseille, and was then a student of the classes préparatoires in . Between 1966 and 1970 he studied at École normale supérieure in Paris, and in 1973 he obtained a PhD from Pierre and Marie Curie University, under the supervision of Jacques Dixmier. From 1970 to 1974 he was research fellow at the French National Centre for Scientific Research and during 1975 he held a visiting position at Queen's University at Kingston in Canada. In 1976 he returned to France and worked as professor at Pierre and Marie Curie University until 1980 and at CNRS between 1981 and 1984. Moreover, since 1979 he holds the Léon Motchane Chair at IHES. From 1984 until his retirement in 2017 he held the chair of Analysis and Geometry at Collège de France.
In parallel, he was awarded a distinguished professorship at Vanderbilt University between 2003 and 2012, and at Ohio State University between 2012 and 2021. Research. Connes' main research interests revolved around operator algebras. Besides noncommutative geometry, he has applied his works in various areas of mathematics and number theory, differential geometry. Since the 1990s, he developed noncommutative geometry. In his early work on von Neumann algebras in the 1970s, he succeeded in obtaining the almost complete classification of injective factors. He also formulated the Connes embedding problem. Following this, he made contributions in operator K-theory and index theory, which culminated in the Baum–Connes conjecture. He also introduced cyclic cohomology in the early 1980s as a first step in the study of noncommutative differential geometry. He was a member of Nicolas Bourbaki. Over many years, he collaborated extensively with Henri Moscovici. Awards and honours. Connes was awarded the Peccot-Vimont Prize in 1976, the Ampère Prize in 1980, the Fields Medal in 1982, the Clay Research Award in 2000 and the Crafoord Prize in 2001. The French National Centre for Scientific Research granted him the silver medal in 1977 and the gold medal in 2004.
He was an invited speaker at the International Congress of Mathematicians in 1974 at Vancouver and in 1986 at Berkeley, and a plenary speaker at the ICM in 1978 at Helsinki. He was awarded honorary degrees from Queen's University at Kingston in 1979, University of Rome Tor Vergata in 1997, University of Oslo in 1999, University of Southern Denmark in 2009, Université libre de Bruxelles in 2010 and Shanghai Fudan University in 2017. Since 1982 he is a member of the French Academy of Sciences. He was elected member of several foreign academies and societies, including the Royal Danish Academy of Sciences and Letters in 1980, the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters in 1983, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1989, the London Mathematical Society in 1994, the Canadian Academy of Sciences in 1995 (incorporated since 2002 in the Royal Society of Canada), the US National Academy of Sciences in 1997, the Russian Academy of Science in 2003 and the Royal Academy of Science, Letters and Fine Arts of Belgium in 2016. In 2001 he received (together with his co-authors André Lichnerowicz and Marco Schutzenberger) the Peano Prize for his work "Triangle of Thoughts." Family. Alain Connes is the middle-born of three sons – born to parents both of whom lived to be 101 years old. He married in 1971.
Allan Dwan Allan Dwan (born Joseph Aloysius Dwan; April 3, 1885 – December 28, 1981) was a pioneering Canadian-born American motion picture director, producer, and screenwriter. Early life. Born Joseph Aloysius Dwan in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, Dwan was the younger son of commercial traveler of woolen clothing Joseph Michael Dwan (1857–1917) and his wife Mary Jane Dwan (née Hunt). The family moved to the United States when he was seven years old on December 4, 1892, by ferry from Windsor to Detroit, according to his naturalization petition of August 1939. His elder brother, Leo Garnet Dwan (1883–1964), became a physician. Allan Dwan studied engineering at the University of Notre Dame and then worked for a lighting company in Chicago. He had a strong interest in the fledgling motion picture industry, and when Essanay Studios offered him the opportunity to become a scriptwriter, he took the job. At that time, some of the East Coast movie makers began to spend winters in California where the climate allowed them to continue productions requiring warm weather. Soon, a number of movie companies worked there year-round, and in 1911, Dwan began working part-time in Hollywood. While still in New York, in 1917 he was the founding president of the East Coast chapter of the Motion Picture Directors Association.
Career. Dwan started his directing career by accident in 1911, when he was sent by his employers to California, in order to locate a company that had vanished. Dwan managed to track the company down, and learned that they were waiting for a film director (who was an alcoholic) to return from a binge and allow them to resume their work. Dwan wired back to his employers in Chicago, informing them of the situation, and suggested that they disband the company. They wired back, instructing Dwan to direct the stalled film. When Dwan informed the company of the situation, and that their jobs were on the line, they responded: "You're the best damn director we ever saw". Dwan operated Flying A Studios in La Mesa, California, from August 1911 to July 1912. Flying A was one of the first motion pictures studios in California history. On August 12, 2011, a plaque was unveiled on the Wolff building at Third Avenue and La Mesa Boulevard commemorating Dwan and the Flying A Studios origins in La Mesa, California. After making a series of westerns and comedies, Dwan directed fellow Canadian-American Mary Pickford in several very successful movies as well as her husband, Douglas Fairbanks, notably in the acclaimed 1922 "Robin Hood". Around that time, he also directed Carole Lombard in "A Perfect Crime", her film debut. Dwan directed Gloria Swanson in eight feature films, and one short film made in the short-lived sound-on-film process Phonofilm. This short, also featuring Thomas Meighan and Henri de la Falaise, was produced as a joke, for the April 26, 1925 "Lambs' Gambol" for The Lambs, with the film showing Swanson crashing the all-male club.
Following the introduction of the talkies, Dwan directed child-star Shirley Temple in "Heidi" (1937) and "Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm" (1938). Dwan helped launch the career of two other successful Hollywood directors, Victor Fleming, who went on to direct "The Wizard of Oz" and "Gone With the Wind", and Marshall Neilan, who became an actor, director, writer and producer. Over a long career spanning almost 50 years, Dwan directed 125 motion pictures, some of which were highly acclaimed, such as the 1949 box office hit, "Sands of Iwo Jima". He directed his last movie in 1961. Being one of the last surviving pioneers of the cinema, he was interviewed at length for the 1980 documentary series "Hollywood". He died in Los Angeles at the age of 96, and is interred in the San Fernando Mission Cemetery, Mission Hills, California. Dwan has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6263 Hollywood Boulevard. Daniel Eagan of "Film Journal International" described Dwan as one of the early pioneers of cinema, stating that his style "is so basic as to seem invisible, but he treats his characters with uncommon sympathy and compassion." Further reading. Print E-book
Algeria Algeria, officially the People's Democratic Republic of Algeria, is a country in the Maghreb region of North Africa. It is bordered to the northeast by Tunisia; to the east by Libya; to the southeast by Niger; to the southwest by Mali, Mauritania, and Western Sahara; to the west by Morocco; and to the north by the Mediterranean Sea. The capital and largest city is Algiers, located in the far north on the Mediterranean coast. Inhabited since prehistory, Algeria has been at the crossroads of numerous cultures and civilisations, including the Phoenicians, Numidians, Romans, Vandals, and Byzantine Greeks. Its modern identity is rooted in centuries of Arab Muslim migration waves since the seventh century and the subsequent Arabisation of the indigenous populations. Following a succession of Islamic Arab and Berber dynasties between the eighth and 15th centuries, the Regency of Algiers was established in 1516 as a largely independent tributary state of the Ottoman Empire. After nearly three centuries as a major power in the Mediterranean, the country was invaded by France in 1830 and formally annexed in 1848, though it was not fully conquered and pacified until 1903. French rule brought mass European settlement that displaced the local population, which was reduced by up to one-third due to warfare, disease, and starvation. The Sétif and Guelma massacre in 1945 catalysed local resistance that culminated in the outbreak of the Algerian War in 1954. Algeria gained its independence in 1962. The country descended into a bloody civil war from 1992 to 2002.
Spanning , Algeria is the world's tenth-largest nation by area, and the largest nation in Africa. It has a semi-arid climate, with the Sahara desert dominating most of the territory except for its fertile and mountainous north, where most of the population is concentrated. With a population of 44 million, Algeria is the tenth-most populous country in Africa, and the 33rd-most populous country in the world. Algeria's official languages are Arabic and Tamazight; French is used in media, education, and certain administrative matters, but it has no official status. The vast majority of the population speak the Algerian dialect of Arabic. Most Algerians are Arabs, with Berbers forming a sizeable minority. Sunni Islam is the official religion and practised by 99 percent of the population. Algeria is a semi-presidential republic composed of 58 provinces ("wilayas") and 1,541 communes. It is a regional power in North Africa and a middle power in global affairs. The country has the second-highest Human Development Index in continental Africa and one of the largest economies in Africa, due mostly to its large petroleum and natural gas reserves, which are the sixteenth and ninth-largest in the world, respectively. Sonatrach, the national oil company, is the largest company in Africa and a major supplier of natural gas to Europe. The Algerian military is one of the largest in Africa, with the highest defence budget on the continent and among the highest in the world (ranks 22nd globally). Algeria is a member of the African Union, the Arab League, the OIC, OPEC, the United Nations, and the Arab Maghreb Union, of which it is a founding member.
Name. Different forms of the name Algeria include: , , . The country's full name is officially the "People's Democratic Republic of Algeria" (; , RADP; Berber Tifinagh: , Berber Latin alphabet: ). Etymology. Algeria's name derives from the city of Algiers, which in turn derives from the Arabic (, 'the islands'), referring to four small islands off its coast, a truncated form of the older (, 'islands of Bani Mazghanna'). The name was given by Buluggin ibn Ziri after he established the city on the ruins of the Phoenician city of Icosium in 950. It was employed by medieval geographers such as Muhammad al-Idrisi and Yaqut al-Hamawi. Algeria took its name from the Regency of Algeria or Regency of Algiers, when Ottoman rule was established in the central Maghreb in early 16th century. This period saw the installation of a political and administrative organisation which participated in the establishment of the (, 'country of Algiers') and the definition of its borders with its neighboring entities on the east and west. The Ottoman Turks who settled in Algeria referred both to themselves and the peoples as "Algerians". Acting as a central military and political authority in the regency, the Ottoman Turks shaped the modern political identity of Algeria as a state possessing all the attributes of sovereign independence, despite still being nominally subject to the Ottoman sultan. Algerian nationalist, historian and statesman Ahmed Tewfik El Madani regarded the regency as the "first Algerian state" and the "Algerian Ottoman republic".
History. Prehistory and ancient history. Around ~1.8-million-year-old stone artifacts from Ain Hanech (Algeria) were considered to represent the oldest archaeological materials in North Africa. Stone artifacts and cut-marked bones that were excavated from two nearby deposits at Ain Boucherit are estimated to be ~1.9 million years old, and even older stone artifacts to be as old as ~2.4 million years. Hence, the Ain Boucherit evidence shows that ancestral hominins inhabited the Mediterranean fringe in northern Africa much earlier than previously thought. The evidence strongly argues for early dispersal of stone tool manufacture and use from East Africa, or a possible multiple-origin scenario of stone technology in both East and North Africa. Neanderthal tool makers produced hand axes in the Levalloisian and Mousterian styles (43,000 BC) similar to those in the Levant. Algeria was the site of the highest state of development of Middle Paleolithic Flake tool techniques. Tools of this era, starting about 30,000 BC, are called Aterian (after the archaeological site of Bir el Ater, south of Tebessa).
The earliest blade industries in North Africa are called Iberomaurusian (located mainly in the Oran region). This industry appears to have spread throughout the coastal regions of the Maghreb between 15,000 and 10,000 BC. Neolithic civilisation (animal domestication and agriculture) developed in the Saharan and Mediterranean Maghreb perhaps as early as 11,000 BC or as late as between 6000 and 2000 BC. This life, richly depicted in the Tassili n'Ajjer paintings, predominated in Algeria until the classical period. The mixture of peoples of North Africa coalesced eventually into a distinct native population that came to be called Berbers, who are the indigenous peoples of northern Africa. From their principal center of power at Carthage, the Carthaginians expanded and established small settlements along the North African coast; by 600 BC, a Phoenician presence existed at Tipasa, east of Cherchell, Hippo Regius (modern Annaba) and Rusicade (modern Skikda). These settlements served as market towns as well as anchorages.
As Carthaginian power grew, its impact on the indigenous population increased dramatically. Berber civilisation was already at a stage in which agriculture, manufacturing, trade, and political organisation supported several states. Trade links between Carthage and the Berbers in the interior grew, but territorial expansion also resulted in the enslavement or military recruitment of some Berbers and in the extraction of tribute from others. By the early 4th century BC, The north is divided into two Masaesyli kingdom in west led by Syphax and Massylii kingdom in east. Berbers formed the single largest element of the Carthaginian army. In the Revolt of the Mercenaries, Berber soldiers rebelled from 241 to 238 BC after being unpaid following the defeat of Carthage in the First Punic War. They succeeded in obtaining control of much of Carthage's North African territory, and they minted coins bearing the name Libyan, used in Greek to describe natives of North Africa. The Carthaginian state declined because of successive defeats by the Romans in the Punic Wars.
In 146 BC the city of Carthage was destroyed. As Carthaginian power waned, the influence of Berber leaders in the hinterland grew. By the 2nd century BC, several large but loosely administered Berber kingdoms had emerged. Two of them were established in Numidia, behind the coastal areas controlled by Carthage. West of Numidia lay Mauretania, which extended across the Moulouya River in modern-day Morocco to the Atlantic Ocean. The high point of Berber civilisation, unequalled until the coming of the Almohads and Almoravids more than a millennium later, was reached during the reign of Masinissa in the 2nd century BC. After Masinissa's death in 148 BC, the Berber kingdoms were divided and reunited several times. Masinissa's line survived until 24 AD, when the remaining Berber territory was annexed to the Roman Empire.
The collapse of the Western Roman Empire led to the establishment of a native Kingdom based in Altava (modern-day Algeria) known as the Mauro-Roman Kingdom. It was succeeded by another Kingdom based in Altava, the Kingdom of Altava. During the reign of Kusaila its territory extended from the region of modern-day Fez in the west to the western Aurès and later Kairaouan and the interior of Ifriqiya in the east. Middle Ages. After negligible resistance from the locals, Muslim Arabs of the Umayyad Caliphate conquered Algeria in the early 8th century. Large numbers of the indigenous Berber people converted to Islam. Christians, Berber and Latin speakers remained in the great majority in Tunisia until the end of the 9th century and Muslims only became a vast majority some time in the 10th. After the fall of the Umayyad Caliphate, numerous local dynasties emerged, including the Rustamids, Aghlabids, Fatimids, Zirids, Hammadids, Almoravids, Almohads and the Zayyanids. The Christians left in three waves: after the initial conquest, in the 10th century and the 11th. The last were evacuated to Sicily by the Normans and the few remaining died out in the 14th century.
During the Middle Ages, North Africa was home to many great scholars, saints and sovereigns including Judah Ibn Quraysh, the first grammarian to mention Semitic and Berber languages, the great Sufi masters Sidi Boumediene (Abu Madyan) and Sidi El Houari, and the Emirs Abd Al Mu'min and Yāghmūrasen. It was during this time that the Fatimids or children of Fatima, daughter of Muhammad, came to the Maghreb. These "Fatimids" went on to found a long lasting dynasty stretching across the Maghreb, Hejaz and the Levant, boasting a secular inner government, as well as a powerful army and navy, made up primarily of Arabs and Levantines extending from Algeria to their capital state of Cairo. The Fatimid caliphate began to collapse when its governors the Zirids seceded. To punish them the Fatimids sent the Arab Banu Hilal and Banu Sulaym against them. The resultant war is recounted in the epic Tāghribāt. In Al-Tāghrībāt the Amazigh Zirid Hero Khālīfā Al-Zānatī asks daily, for duels, to defeat the Hilalan hero Ābu Zayd al-Hilalī and many other Arab knights in a string of victories. The Zirids, however, were ultimately defeated ushering in an adoption of Arab customs and culture. The indigenous Amazigh tribes, however, remained largely independent, and depending on tribe, location and time controlled varying parts of the Maghreb, at times unifying it (as under the Fatimids). The Fatimid Islamic state, also known as Fatimid Caliphate made an Islamic empire that included North Africa, Sicily, Palestine, Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, Egypt, the Red Sea coast of Africa, Tihamah, Hejaz and Yemen. Caliphates from Northern Africa traded with the other empires of their time, as well as forming part of a confederated support and trade network with other Islamic states during the Islamic Era.
The Berber people historically consisted of several tribes. The two main branches were the Botr and Barnès tribes, who were divided into tribes, and again into sub-tribes. Each region of the Maghreb contained several tribes (for example, Sanhadja, Houara, Zenata, Masmouda, Kutama, Awarba, and Berghwata). All these tribes made independent territorial decisions. Several Amazigh dynasties emerged during the Middle Ages in the Maghreb and other nearby lands. Ibn Khaldun provides a table summarising the Amazigh dynasties of the Maghreb region, the Zirid, Ifranid, Maghrawa, Almoravid, Hammadid, Almohad, Merinid, Abdalwadid, Wattasid, Meknassa and Hafsid dynasties. Both of the Hammadid and Zirid empires as well as the Fatimids established their rule in all of the Maghreb countries. The Zirids ruled land in what is now Algeria, Tunisia, Morocco, Libya, Spain, Malta and Italy. The Hammadids captured and held important regions such as Ouargla, Constantine, Sfax, Susa, Algiers, Tripoli and Fez establishing their rule in every country in the Maghreb region. The Fatimids which was created and established by the Kutama Berbers conquered all of North Africa as well as Sicily and parts of the Middle East.
Following the Berber revolt numerous independent states emerged across the Maghreb. In Algeria the Rustamid Kingdom was established. The Rustamid realm stretched from Tafilalt in Morocco to the Nafusa mountains in Libya including south, central and western Tunisia therefore including territory in all of the modern day Maghreb countries, in the south the Rustamid realm expanded to the modern borders of Mali and included territory in Mauritania. Once extending their control over all of the Maghreb, part of Spain and briefly over Sicily, originating from modern Algeria, the Zirids only controlled modern Ifriqiya by the 11th century. The Zirids recognised nominal suzerainty of the Fatimid caliphs of Cairo. El Mu'izz the Zirid ruler decided to end this recognition and declared his independence. The Zirids also fought against other Zenata Kingdoms, for example the Maghrawa, a Berber dynasty originating from Algeria and which at one point was a dominant power in the Maghreb ruling over much of Morocco and western Algeria including Fez, Sijilmasa, Aghmat, Oujda, most of the Sous and Draa and reaching as far as M'sila and the Zab in Algeria.
As the Fatimid state was at the time too weak to attempt a direct invasion, they found another means of revenge. Between the Nile and the Red Sea were living Bedouin nomad tribes expelled from Arabia for their disruption and turbulency. The Banu Hilal and the Banu Sulaym for example, who regularly disrupted farmers in the Nile Valley since the nomads would often loot their farms. The then Fatimid vizier decided to destroy what he could not control, and broke a deal with the chiefs of these Bedouin tribes. The Fatimids even gave them money to leave. Whole tribes set off with women, children, elders, animals and camping equipment. Some stopped on the way, especially in Cyrenaica, where they are still one of the essential elements of the settlement but most arrived in Ifriqiya by the Gabes region, arriving 1051. The Zirid ruler tried to stop this rising tide, but with each encounter, the last under the walls of Kairouan, his troops were defeated and the Arabs remained masters of the battlefield. The Arabs usually did not take control over the cities, instead looting them and destroying them.
The invasion kept going, and in 1057 the Arabs spread on the high plains of Constantine where they encircled the Qalaa of Banu Hammad (capital of the Hammadid Emirate), as they had done in Kairouan a few decades ago. From there they gradually gained the upper Algiers and Oran plains. Some of these territories were forcibly taken back by the Almohads in the second half of the 12th century. The influx of Bedouin tribes was a major factor in the linguistic, cultural Arabisation of the Maghreb and in the spread of nomadism in areas where agriculture had previously been dominant. Ibn Khaldun noted that the lands ravaged by the Banu Hilal tribes had become completely arid desert. The Almohads originating from modern day Morocco, although founded by a man originating from modern day Algeria known as Abd al-Mu'min would soon take control over the Maghreb. During the time of the Almohad Dynasty Abd al-Mu'min's tribe, the Koumïa, were the main supporters of the throne and the most important body of the empire. Defeating the weakening Almoravid Empire and taking control over Morocco in 1147, they pushed into Algeria in 1152, taking control over Tlemcen, Oran, and Algiers, wrestling control from the Hilian Arabs, and by the same year they defeated Hammadids who controlled Eastern Algeria.
Following their decisive defeat in the Battle of Las Navas de Tolosa in 1212 the Almohads began collapsing, and in 1235 the governor of modern-day Western Algeria, Yaghmurasen Ibn Zyan declared his independence and established the Kingdom of Tlemcen and the Zayyanid dynasty. Warring with the Almohad forces attempting to restore control over Algeria for 13 years, they defeated the Almohads in 1248 after killing their Caliph in a successful ambush near Oujda. The Zayyanids retained their control over Algeria for 3 centuries. Much of the eastern territories of Algeria were under the authority of the Hafsid dynasty, although the Emirate of Bejaia encompassing the Algerian territories of the Hafsids would occasionally be independent from central Tunisian control. At their peak the Zayyanid kingdom included all of Morocco as its vassal to the west and in the east reached as far as Tunis which they captured during the reign of Abu Tashfin. After several conflicts with local Barbary pirates sponsored by the Zayyanid sultans, Spain decided to invade Algeria and defeat the native Kingdom of Tlemcen. In 1505, they invaded and captured Mers el Kébir, and in 1509 after a bloody siege, they conquered Oran. Following their decisive victories over the Algerians in the western-coastal areas of Algeria, the Spanish decided to get bolder, and invaded more Algerian cities. In 1510, they led a series of sieges and attacks, taking over Bejaia in a large siege, and leading a semi-successful siege against Algiers. They also besieged Tlemcen. In 1511, they took control over Cherchell and Jijel, and attacked Mostaganem where although they were not able to conquer the city, they were able to force a tribute on them.
Early modern era. In 1516, the Turkish privateer brothers Aruj and Hayreddin Barbarossa, who operated successfully under the Hafsids, moved their base of operations to Algiers. They succeeded in conquering Jijel and Algiers from the Spaniards with help from the locals who saw them as liberators from the Christians, but the brothers eventually assassinated the local noble Salim al-Tumi and took control over the city and the surrounding regions. Their state is known as the Regency of Algiers. When Aruj was killed in 1518 during his invasion of Tlemcen, Hayreddin succeeded him as military commander of Algiers. The Ottoman sultan gave him the title of beylerbey and a contingent of some 2,000 janissaries. With the aid of this force and native Algerians, Hayreddin conquered the whole area between Constantine and Oran (although the city of Oran remained in Spanish hands until 1792). The next beylerbey was Hayreddin's son Hasan, who assumed the position in 1544. He was a Kouloughli or of mixed origins, as his mother was an Algerian Mooresse. Until 1587 Beylerbeylik of Algiers was governed by Beylerbeys who served terms with no fixed limits. Subsequently, with the institution of a regular administration, governors with the title of pasha ruled for three-year terms. The pasha was assisted by an autonomous janissary unit, known in Algeria as the Ojaq who were led by an agha. Discontent among the ojaq rose in the mid-1600s because they were not paid regularly, and they repeatedly revolted against the pasha. As a result, the agha charged the pasha with corruption and incompetence and seized power in 1659.
Plague had repeatedly struck the cities of North Africa. Algiers lost between 30,000 and 50,000 inhabitants to the plague in 1620–21, and had high fatalities in 1654–57, 1665, 1691 and 1740–42. The Barbary pirates preyed on Christian and other non-Islamic shipping in the western Mediterranean Sea. The pirates often took the passengers and crew on the ships and sold them or used them as slaves. They also did a brisk business in ransoming some of the captives. According to Robert Davis, from the 16th to 19th century, pirates captured 1 million to 1.25 million Europeans as slaves. They often made raids on European coastal towns to capture Christian slaves to sell at slave markets in North Africa and other parts of the Ottoman Empire. In 1544, for example, Hayreddin Barbarossa captured the island of Ischia, taking 4,000 prisoners, and enslaved some 9,000 inhabitants of Lipari, almost the entire population. In 1551, the Ottoman governor of Algiers, Turgut Reis, enslaved the entire population of the Maltese island of Gozo. Barbary pirates often attacked the Balearic Islands. The threat was so severe that residents abandoned the island of Formentera. The introduction of broad-sail ships from the beginning of the 17th century allowed them to branch out into the Atlantic.
In July 1627 two pirate ships from Algiers under the command of Dutch pirate Jan Janszoon sailed as far as Iceland, raiding and capturing slaves. Two weeks earlier another pirate ship from Salé in Morocco had also raided in Iceland. Some of the slaves brought to Algiers were later ransomed back to Iceland, but some chose to stay in Algeria. In 1629, pirate ships from Algeria raided the Faroe Islands. In 1659, the Janissaries stationed in Algiers, also known commonly as the Odjak of Algiers; and the Reis or the company of corsair captains rebelled, they removed the Ottoman viceroy from power, and placed one of its own in power. The new leader received the title of "Agha" then "Dey" in 1671, and the right to select passed to the divan, a council of some sixty military senior officers. Thus Algiers became a sovereign military republic. It was at first dominated by the odjak; but by the 18th century, it had become the dey's instrument. Although Algiers remained nominally part of the Ottoman Empire, in reality they acted independently from the rest of the Empire, and often had wars with other Ottoman subjects and territories such as the Beylik of Tunis.
The dey was in effect a constitutional autocrat. The dey was elected for a life term, but in the 159 years (1671–1830) that the system was in place, fourteen of the twenty-nine deys were assassinated. Despite usurpation, military coups and occasional mob rule, the day-to-day operation of the Deylikal government was remarkably orderly. Although the regency patronised the tribal chieftains, it never had the unanimous allegiance of the countryside, where heavy taxation frequently provoked unrest. Autonomous tribal states were tolerated, and the regency's authority was seldom applied in the Kabylia, although in 1730 the Regency was able to take control over the Kingdom of Kuku in western Kabylia. Many cities in the northern parts of the Algerian desert paid taxes to Algiers or one of its Beys. Barbary raids in the Mediterranean continued to attack Spanish merchant shipping, and as a result, the Spanish Empire launched an invasion in 1775, then the Spanish Navy bombarded Algiers in 1783 and 1784. For the attack in 1784, the Spanish fleet was to be joined by ships from such traditional enemies of Algiers as Naples, Portugal and the Knights of Malta. Over 20,000 cannonballs were fired, but all these military campaigns were doomed and Spain had to ask for peace in 1786 and paid 1 million pesos to the Dey.
In 1792, Algiers took back Oran and Mers el Kébir, the two last Spanish strongholds in Algeria. In the same year, they conquered the Moroccan Rif and Oujda, which they then abandoned in 1795. In the 19th century, Algerian pirates forged affiliations with Caribbean powers, paying a "license tax" in exchange for safe harbor of their vessels. Attacks by Algerian pirates on American merchantmen resulted in the First and Second Barbary Wars, which ended the attacks on U.S. ships in 1815. A year later, a combined Anglo-Dutch fleet, under the command of Lord Exmouth bombarded Algiers to stop similar attacks on European fishermen. These efforts proved successful, although Algerian piracy would continue until the French conquest in 1830. French colonisation (1830–1962). Under the pretext of a slight to their consul, the French invaded and captured Algiers in 1830. According to several historians, the methods used by the French to establish control over Algeria reached genocidal proportions. Historian Ben Kiernan wrote on the French conquest of Algeria: "By 1875, the French conquest was complete. The war had killed approximately 825,000 indigenous Algerians since 1830". French losses from 1831 to 1851 were 92,329 dead in the hospital and only 3,336 killed in action. In 1872, The Algerian population stood at about 2.9 million. French policy was predicated on "civilising" the country. The slave trade and piracy in Algeria ceased following the French conquest. The conquest of Algeria by the French took some time and resulted in considerable bloodshed. A combination of violence and disease epidemics caused the indigenous Algerian population to decline by nearly one-third from 1830 to 1872. On 17 September 1860, Napoleon III declared "Our first duty is to take care of the happiness of the three million Arabs, whom the fate of arms has brought under our domination." During this time, only Kabylia resisted, the Kabylians were not colonised until after the Mokrani Revolt in 1871.
Alexis de Tocqueville wrote and never completed an unpublished essay outlining his ideas for how to transform Algeria from an occupied tributary state to a colonial regime, wherein he advocated for a mixed system of "total domination and total colonisation" whereby French military would wage total war against civilian populations while a colonial administration would provide rule of law and property rights to settlers within French occupied cities. From 1848 until independence, France administered the whole Mediterranean region of Algeria as an integral part and "département" of the nation. One of France's longest-held overseas territories, Algeria became a destination for hundreds of thousands of European immigrants, who became known as "colons" and later, as "Pied-Noirs." Between 1825 and 1847, 50,000 French people emigrated to Algeria. These settlers benefited from the French government's confiscation of communal land from tribal peoples, and the application of modern agricultural techniques that increased the amount of arable land. Many Europeans settled in Oran and Algiers, and by the early 20th century they formed a majority of the population in both cities.
During the late 19th and early 20th century, the European share was almost a fifth of the population. The French government aimed at making Algeria an assimilated part of France, and this included substantial educational investments especially after 1900. The indigenous cultural and religious resistance heavily opposed this tendency, but in contrast to the other colonised countries' path in central Asia and Caucasus, Algeria kept its individual skills and a relatively human-capital intensive agriculture. During the Second World War, Algeria came under Vichy control before being liberated by the Allies in Operation Torch, which saw the first large-scale deployment of American troops in the North African campaign. Gradually, dissatisfaction among the Muslim population, which lacked political and economic status under the colonial system, gave rise to demands for greater political autonomy and eventually independence from France. In May 1945, the uprising against the occupying French forces was suppressed through what is now known as the Sétif and Guelma massacre. Tensions between the two population groups came to a head in 1954, when the first violent events of what was later called the Algerian War began after the publication of the Declaration of 1 November 1954. Historians have estimated that between 30,000 and 150,000 Harkis and their dependents were killed by the National Liberation Front (FLN) or by lynch mobs in Algeria. The FLN used hit and run attacks in Algeria and France as part of its war, and the French conducted severe reprisals. In addition, the French destroyed over 8,000 villages and relocated over 2 million Algerians to concentration camps.
The war led to the death of hundreds of thousands of Algerians and hundreds of thousands of injuries. Historians, like Alistair Horne and Raymond Aron, state that the actual number of Algerian Muslim war dead was far greater than the original FLN and official French estimates but was less than the 1 million deaths claimed by the Algerian government after independence. Horne estimated Algerian casualties during the span of eight years to be around 700,000. The war uprooted more than 2 million Algerians. The war against French rule concluded in 1962, when Algeria gained complete independence following the March 1962 Evian agreements and the July 1962 self-determination referendum. The first three decades of independence (1962–1991). The number of European "Pied-Noirs" who fled Algeria totaled more than 900,000 between 1962 and 1964. The exodus to mainland France accelerated after the Oran massacre of 1962, in which hundreds of militants entered European sections of the city and began attacking civilians. Algeria's first president was the Front de Libération Nationale (FLN) leader Ahmed Ben Bella. Morocco's claim to portions of western Algeria led to the Sand War in 1963. Ben Bella was overthrown in 1965 by Houari Boumédiène, his former ally and defence minister. Under Ben Bella, the government had become increasingly socialist and authoritarian; Boumédienne continued this trend. However, he relied much more on the army for his support, and reduced the sole legal party to a symbolic role. He collectivised agriculture and launched a massive industrialisation drive. Oil extraction facilities were nationalised. This was especially beneficial to the leadership after the international 1973 oil crisis.
Boumédienne's successor, Chadli Bendjedid, introduced some liberal economic reforms. He promoted a policy of Arabisation in Algerian society and public life. Teachers of Arabic, brought in from other Muslim countries, spread conventional Islamic thought in schools and sowed the seeds of a return to Orthodox Islam. The Algerian economy became increasingly dependent on oil, leading to hardship when the price collapsed during the 1980s oil glut. Economic recession caused by the crash in world oil prices resulted in Algerian social unrest during the 1980s; by the end of the decade, Bendjedid introduced a multi-party system. Political parties developed, such as the Islamic Salvation Front (FIS), a broad coalition of Muslim groups. Civil War (1991–2002) and aftermath. In December 1991 the Islamic Salvation Front dominated the first of two rounds of legislative elections. Fearing the election of an Islamist government, the authorities intervened on 11 January 1992, cancelling the elections. Bendjedid resigned and a High Council of State was installed to act as the Presidency. It banned the FIS, triggering a civil insurgency between the Front's armed wing, the Armed Islamic Group, and the national armed forces, in which more than 100,000 people are thought to have died. The Islamist militants conducted a violent campaign of civilian massacres. At several points in the conflict, the situation in Algeria became a point of international concern, most notably during the crisis surrounding Air France Flight 8969, a hijacking perpetrated by the Armed Islamic Group. The Armed Islamic Group declared a ceasefire in October 1997.
Algeria held elections in 1999, considered biased by international observers and most opposition groups which were won by President Abdelaziz Bouteflika. He worked to restore political stability to the country and announced a "Civil Concord" initiative, approved in a referendum, under which many political prisoners were pardoned, and several thousand members of armed groups were granted exemption from prosecution under a limited amnesty, in force until 13 January 2000. The AIS disbanded and levels of insurgent violence fell rapidly. The Groupe Salafiste pour la Prédication et le Combat (GSPC), a splinter group of the Armed Islamic Group, continued a terrorist campaign against the Government. Bouteflika was re-elected in the April 2004 presidential election after campaigning on a programme of national reconciliation. The programme comprised economic, institutional, political and social reform to modernise the country, raise living standards, and tackle the causes of alienation. It also included a second amnesty initiative, the Charter for Peace and National Reconciliation, which was approved in a referendum in September 2005. It offered amnesty to most guerrillas and Government security forces.
In November 2008, the Algerian Constitution was amended following a vote in Parliament, removing the two-term limit on Presidential incumbents. This change enabled Bouteflika to stand for re-election in the 2009 presidential elections, and he was re-elected in April 2009. During his election campaign and following his re-election, Bouteflika promised to extend the programme of national reconciliation and a $150-billion spending programme to create three million new jobs, the construction of one million new housing units, and to continue public sector and infrastructure modernisation programmes. A continuing series of protests throughout the country started on 28 December 2010, inspired by similar protests across the Middle East and North Africa. On 24 February 2011, the government lifted Algeria's 19-year-old state of emergency. The government enacted legislation dealing with political parties, the electoral code, and the representation of women in elected bodies. In April 2011, Bouteflika promised further constitutional and political reform. However, elections are routinely criticised by opposition groups as unfair and international human rights groups say that media censorship and harassment of political opponents continue.
On 2 April 2019, Bouteflika resigned from the presidency after mass protests against his candidacy for a fifth term in office. In December 2019, Abdelmadjid Tebboune became Algeria's president, after winning the first round of the presidential election with a record abstention rate – the highest of all presidential elections since Algeria's democracy in 1989. Tebboune is accused of being close to the military and being loyal to the deposed president. Tebboune rejects these accusations, claiming to be the victim of a witch hunt. He also reminds his detractors that he was expelled from the Government in August 2017 at the instigation of oligarchs languishing in prison. In September 2024, President Tebboune won a second term with a landslide 84.3 percent of the vote, although his opponents called the results fraud. Geography. Since the 2011 breakup of Sudan, and the creation of South Sudan, Algeria has been the largest country in Africa, and the Mediterranean Basin. Its southern part includes a significant portion of the Sahara. To the north, the Tell Atlas forms with the Saharan Atlas, further south, two parallel sets of reliefs in approaching eastbound, and between which are inserted vast plains and highlands. Both Atlas tend to merge in eastern Algeria. The vast mountain ranges of Aures and Nememcha occupy the entire northeastern Algeria and are delineated by the Tunisian border. The highest point is Mount Tahat ().
Algeria lies mostly between latitudes 19° and 37°N (a small area is north of 37°N and south of 19°N), and longitudes 9°W and 12°E. Most of the coastal area is hilly, sometimes even mountainous, and there are a few natural harbours. The area from the coast to the Tell Atlas is fertile. South of the Tell Atlas is a steppe landscape ending with the Saharan Atlas; farther south, there is the Sahara desert. The Hoggar Mountains (), also known as the Hoggar, are a highland region in central Sahara, southern Algeria. They are located about south of the capital, Algiers, and just east of Tamanghasset. Algiers, Oran, Constantine, and Annaba are Algeria's main cities. Climate and hydrology. In this region, midday desert temperatures can be hot year round. After sunset, however, the clear, dry air permits rapid loss of heat, and the nights are cool to chilly. Enormous daily ranges in temperature are recorded. Rainfall is fairly plentiful along the coastal part of the Tell Atlas, ranging from annually, the amount of precipitation increasing from west to east. Precipitation is heaviest in the northern part of eastern Algeria, where it reaches as much as in some years.
Farther inland, the rainfall is less plentiful. Algeria also has ergs, or sand dunes, between mountains. Among these, in the summer time when winds are heavy and gusty, temperatures can go up to . Fauna and flora. The varied vegetation of Algeria includes coastal, mountainous and grassy desert-like regions which all support a wide range of wildlife. In Algeria forest cover is around 1% of the total land area, equivalent to 1,949,000 hectares (ha) of forest in 2020, up from 1,667,000 hectares (ha) in 1990. In 2020, naturally regenerating forest covered 1,439,000 hectares (ha) and planted forest covered 510,000 hectares (ha). Of the naturally regenerating forest 0% was reported to be primary forest (consisting of native tree species with no clearly visible indications of human activity) and around 6% of the forest area was found within protected areas. For the year 2015, 80% of the forest area was reported to be under public ownership, 18% private ownership and 2% with ownership listed as other or unknown. Many of the creatures constituting the Algerian wildlife live in close proximity to civilisation. The most commonly seen animals include the wild boars, jackals, and gazelles, although it is not uncommon to spot fennecs (foxes), and jerboas. Algeria also has a small African leopard and Saharan cheetah population, but these are seldom seen. A species of deer, the Barbary stag, inhabits the dense humid forests in the north-eastern areas. The fennec fox is the national animal of Algeria.
A variety of bird species makes the country an attraction for bird watchers. The forests are inhabited by boars and jackals. Barbary macaques are the sole native monkey. Snakes, monitor lizards, and numerous other reptiles can be found living among an array of rodents throughout the semi arid regions of Algeria. Many animals are now extinct, including the Barbary lions, Atlas bears and crocodiles. In the north, some of the native flora includes Macchia scrub, olive trees, oaks, cedars and other conifers. The mountain regions contain large forests of evergreens (Aleppo pine, juniper, and evergreen oak) and some deciduous trees. Fig, eucalyptus, agave, and various palm trees grow in the warmer areas. The grape vine is indigenous to the coast. In the Sahara region, some oases have palm trees. Acacias with wild olives are the predominant flora in the remainder of the Sahara. Algeria had a 2018 Forest Landscape Integrity Index mean score of 5.22/10, ranking it 106th globally out of 172 countries. Camels are used extensively; the desert also abounds with venomous and nonvenomous snakes, scorpions, and numerous insects.
Government and politics. Algeria's government has been described as authoritarian, and elected politicians have relatively little sway over affairs in the country. Instead, a group of unelected civilian and military "décideurs" ("deciders"), known as "le pouvoir" ("the power"), de facto rule the country, even deciding who should be president. The most powerful man might have been Mohamed Mediène, the head of military intelligence, before he was brought down during the 2019 protests. In recent years, many of these generals have died, retired, or been imprisoned. After the death of General Larbi Belkheir, previous president Bouteflika put loyalists in key posts, notably at Sonatrach, and secured constitutional amendments that made him re-electable indefinitely, until he was brought down in 2019 during protests. The head of state is the President of Algeria, who is elected for a five-year term. The president is limited to two five-year terms. The most recent presidential election was planned to be in April 2019, but widespread protests erupted on 22 February against the president's decision to participate in the election, which resulted in President Bouteflika announcing his resignation on 3 April. Abdelmadjid Tebboune, an independent candidate, was elected as president after the election eventually took place on 12 December 2019. Protestors refused to recognise Tebboune as president, citing demands for comprehensive reform of the political system. Algeria has universal suffrage at 18 years of age. The President is the head of the army, the Council of Ministers and the High Security Council. He appoints the Prime Minister who is also the head of government.
The Algerian parliament is bicameral; the lower house, the People's National Assembly, has 462 members who are directly elected for five-year terms, while the upper house, the Council of the Nation, has 144 members serving six-year terms, of which 96 members are chosen by local assemblies and 48 are appointed by the president. According to the constitution, no political association may be formed if it is "based on differences in religion, language, race, gender, profession, or region". In addition, political campaigns must be exempt from the aforementioned subjects. Parliamentary elections were last held in June 2021. In the elections, the FLN lost 66 of its seats, but remained the largest party with 98 seats. Other parties included the Movement of the Society for Peace which won 65 seats, the National Rally for Democracy which won 58 seats, the Future Front which won 48 seats, and the National Construction Movement which won 39 seats. Foreign relations. Algeria is included in the European Union's European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP) which aims at bringing the EU and its neighbours closer.
Giving incentives and rewarding best performers, as well as offering funds in a faster and more flexible manner, are the two main principles underlying the European Neighbourhood Instrument (ENI) that came into force in 2014. It has a budget of €15.4 billion and provides the bulk of funding through a number of programmes. In 2009, the French government agreed to compensate victims of nuclear tests in Algeria. Defence Minister Hervé Morin stated that "It's time for our country to be at peace with itself, at peace thanks to a system of compensation and reparations", when presenting the draft law on the payouts. Algerian officials and activists believe that this is a good first step and hope that this move would encourage broader reparation. Tensions between Algeria and Morocco in relation to the Western Sahara have been an obstacle to tightening the Arab Maghreb Union, nominally established in 1989, but which has carried little practical weight. On 24 August 2021, Algeria announced the break of diplomatic relations with Morocco.
Military. The military of Algeria consists of the People's National Army (ANP), the Algerian National Navy (MRA), and the Algerian Air Force (QJJ), plus the Territorial Air Defence Forces. It is the direct successor of the National Liberation Army (Armée de Libération Nationale or ALN), the armed wing of the nationalist National Liberation Front which fought French colonial occupation during the Algerian War of Independence (1954–62). Total military personnel include 147,000 active, 150,000 reserve, and 187,000 paramilitary staff (2008 estimate). Service in the military is compulsory for men aged 19–30, for a total of 12 months. The military expenditure was 4.3% of the gross domestic product (GDP) in 2012. Algeria has the second-largest military in North Africa with the largest defence budget in Africa ($10 billion). Most of Algeria's weapons are imported from Russia, with whom they are a close ally. In 2007, the Algerian Air Force signed a deal with Russia to purchase 49 MiG-29SMT and 6 MiG-29UBT at an estimated cost of $1.9 billion. Russia is also building two 636-type diesel submarines for Algeria.
Algeria is the 90th most peaceful country in the world, according to the 2024 Global Peace Index. Human rights. Algeria has been categorised by the US government funded Freedom House as "not free" since it began publishing such ratings in 1972, with the exception of 1989, 1990, and 1991, when the country was labelled "partly free". In December 2016, the "Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor" issued a report regarding violation of media freedom in Algeria. It clarified that the Algerian government imposed restrictions on freedom of the press; expression; and right to peaceful demonstration, protest and assembly as well as intensified censorship of the media and websites. Due to the fact that the journalists and activists criticise the ruling government, some media organisations' licenses are cancelled. Independent and autonomous trade unions face routine harassment from the government, with many leaders imprisoned and protests suppressed. In 2016, a number of unions, many of which were involved in the 2010–2012 Algerian Protests, have been deregistered by the government.
Homosexuality is illegal in Algeria. Public homosexual behavior is punishable by up to two years in prison. Despite this, about 26% of Algerians think that homosexuality should be accepted, according to the survey conducted by the BBC News Arabic-Arab Barometer in 2019. Algeria showed the highest LGBT acceptance compared to other Arab countries where the survey was conducted. Human Rights Watch has accused the Algerian authorities of using the COVID-19 pandemic as an excuse to prevent pro-democracy movements and protests in the country, leading to the arrest of youths as part of social distancing. Administrative divisions. Algeria is divided into 58 provinces ("wilayas"), 553 districts ("daïras") and 1,541 municipalities ("baladiyahs"). Each province, district, and municipality is named after its seat, which is usually the largest city. The administrative divisions have changed several times since independence. When introducing new provinces, the numbers of old provinces are kept, hence the non-alphabetical order. With their official numbers, currently (since 1983) they are:
Economy. Algeria's currency is the dinar (DZD). The economy remains dominated by the state, a legacy of the country's socialist post-independence development model. In June 2024 The World Bank's 2024 report marks a turning point for Algeria, which joins the select club of upper-middle-income countries. This economic rise, the result of an ambitious development strategy, places the country in the same category as emerging powers such as China, Brazil and Turkey In recent years, the Algerian government has halted the privatisation of state-owned industries and imposed restrictions on imports and foreign involvement in its economy. These restrictions are just starting to be lifted off recently although questions about Algeria's slowly-diversifying economy remain. Algeria has struggled to develop industries outside hydrocarbons in part because of high costs and an inert state bureaucracy. The government's efforts to diversify the economy by attracting foreign and domestic investment outside the energy sector have done little to reduce high youth unemployment rates or to address housing shortages. The country is facing a number of short-term and medium-term problems, including the need to diversify the economy, strengthen political, economic and financial reforms, improve the business climate and reduce inequalities among regions.
A wave of economic protests in February and March 2011 prompted the Algerian government to offer more than $23 billion in public grants and retroactive salary and benefit increases. Public spending has increased by 27% annually during the past five years. The 2010–14 public-investment programme will cost US$286 billion, 40% of which will go to human development. Thanks to strong hydrocarbon revenues, Algeria has a cushion of $173 billion in foreign currency reserves and a large hydrocarbon stabilisation fund. In addition, Algeria's external debt is extremely low at about 2% of GDP. The economy remains very dependent on hydrocarbon wealth, and, despite high foreign exchange reserves (US$178 billion, equivalent to three years of imports), current expenditure growth makes Algeria's budget more vulnerable to the risk of prolonged lower hydrocarbon revenues. Algeria has not joined the WTO, despite several years of negotiations but is a member of the Greater Arab Free Trade Area, the African Continental Free Trade Area, and has an association agreement with the European Union.
Turkish direct investments have accelerated in Algeria, with total value reaching $5 billion. As of 2022, the number of Turkish companies present in Algeria has reached 1,400. In 2020, despite the pandemic, more than 130 Turkish companies were created in Algeria. Oil and natural resources. Algeria, whose economy is reliant on petroleum, has been an OPEC member since 1969. Its crude oil production stands at around 1.1 million barrels/day, but it is also a major gas producer and exporter, with important links to Europe. Hydrocarbons have long been the backbone of the economy, accounting for roughly 60% of budget revenues, 30% of GDP, and 87.7% of export earnings. Algeria has the 10th-largest reserves of natural gas in the world and is the sixth-largest gas exporter. The U.S. Energy Information Administration reported that in 2005, Algeria had of proven natural gas reserves. It also ranks 16th in oil reserves. Non-hydrocarbon growth for 2011 was projected at 5%. To cope with social demands, the authorities raised expenditure, especially on basic food support, employment creation, support for SMEs, and higher salaries. High hydrocarbon prices have improved the current account and the already large international reserves position.

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