Jeff Riggenbach, at the libertarian Ludwig von Mises Institute, has a podcast about a virtually unknown Russian novel, We (1921, first published in English in 1924), by an equally unknown Russian novelist, Yevgeny Zamyatin (1884 – 1937).

   Zamyatin’s book chronicles the dystopia of the One State. Riggenbach notes the uncanny similarities between George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-four (1949) and Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World (1932) — if by “uncanny similarities” you mean outright plagiarism.

   Predictably, Riggenbach also notes the possible influence of We and its author on the young libertarian Ayn Rand and her second novel, Anthem.

   —Mike Gray