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Atlas Shrugged | 
| Author: Ayn Rand
Publisher: Signet
Category: Book
List Price: $8.99
Buy New: $4.98
You Save: $4.01 (45%)
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Avg. Customer Rating:  1492 reviews
Sales Rank: 917
Media: Mass Market Paperback
Edition: 35 Anv
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 1088
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1
Dimensions (in): 6.7 x 4.1 x 1.6
ISBN: 0451191145
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.52
EAN: 9780451191144
ASIN: 0451191145
Publication Date: September 1, 1996
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Product Description
Published in 1957, Atlas Shrugged was Ayn Rand's greatest achievement and last work of fiction. In this novel she dramatizes her unique philosophy through an intellectual mystery story that integrates ethics, metaphysics, epistemology, politics, economics, and sex.
Set in a near-future U.S.A. whose economy is collapsing as a result of the mysterious disappearance of leading innovators and industrialists, this novel presents an astounding panorama of human life-from the productive genius who becomes a worthless playboy...to the great steel industrialist who does not know that he is working for his own destruction...to the philosopher who becomes a pirate...to the woman who runs a transcontinental railroad...to the lowest track worker in her train tunnels.
Peopled by larger-than-life heroes and villains, charged with towering questions of good and evil, Atlas Shrugged is a philosophical revolution told in the form of an action thriller.
Download Description
Who is John Galt?This famous rhetorical question rings through Ayn Rand's best-selling novel as the people's anthem of despair in depressed economic times. Set in the future, the novel follows capitalist magnates as they battle looters, strikers, and the impending ruin of the United States' economy. The romantic and intellectual relationship between Dagny Taggart, the heroine, and John Galt, whose identity as the leader of the strike is eventually revealed, carries the novel to its climax. This novel, controversial when it first appeared in 1957, purports Rand's objectivist philosophy that the individual is free to pursue his or her own happiness without bowing to God or society. Objectivism in action upholds full laissez-faire capitalism as the only philosophy that can protect humankind's freedom to think, to be inventive, and to live productively.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 1487 more reviews...
 Incredible book May 14, 2008
Ayn's characters are taken to archetypal extremes to illustrate her point. If you can get past that, this book explores some interesting concepts that I continually find myself thinking back to and relating to modern events.
Simply as a work of fiction, it can be a little slow in parts, but overall it succeeds as entertainment.
Ayn Rand. Best Seller for a reason. May 8, 2008
There's a reason Ayn Rand has been on the top seller's list for multiple decades.
Atlas Shrugged May 6, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
This is one of the best books I have ever read, I absolutely love it, I have told everyone about it. It is truely a good read.
The Second Coming of Capitalism May 2, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Every few years I pull out Atlas Shrugged and read it again. Amid an intensely structured writing style with detailed characterizations that would make Sir Edward George Bulwer-Lytton blush, I continue to find ideas that mirror the double-minded world in which we live.
A world where legislators complain about rising oil prices and jobs moving off-shore, punish those who the public perceives as the guilty party, and end up making things worse. A world where popular leaders are less concerned about the correctness of the ideas they advocate, but more concerned about the number of followers they can attract. A world where some highly publicized and popular ideas, if taken to their logical conclusion, would result in the eradication of mankind from this planet.
Ayn Rand attempted to identify the root causes of these behaviors and propose a solution in an epic end-of-the-world story. In brief, in some future or parallel world, everything is grinding to a halt. The primary producers are dropping out and disappearing. They are being replaced by people who are both humanistic and opportunistic, but not very knowledgeable. As a result, industry continues to collapse. Eventually the government steps in and in a series of directives are issued: each more severe and more socialistic. But each directive worsens the situation, until a dictator-like status is reached.
Amid this crisis, the book primarily traces the activities of two individuals: Dagny Taggart, in charge of the operations of the last Transcontinental Railroad, and Hank Rearden, the last of the steel barons. Both characters are very intelligent, responsible, and highly productive. Other important characters move in and out of the narrative: the good, the bad, and the indifferent, but Taggart and Rearden are used to discover the root causes of the world-wide collapse.
Near the novel's end, when the causes (according to Rand) are rooted out by both Taggart and Rearden, there is a long speech (Part 3, Chapter 7: "This is John Galt Speaking") that sums up Ayn Rand's philosophy. It is the notorious 50 page speech, which most people either skip over or browse rapidly. Unless one is reading Atlas Shrugged simply for entertainment, I recommend that you take the time to carefully read the "speech." There are a number of issues (especially her very anti-religious stance) that are spelled out and justified in that speech, but hardly touched in the book.
I believe that Ayn Rand correctly identified some of the root causes that contribute to this double-minded world, but in some areas, she incorrectly identifies the motivations for some groups, probably based on her prejudices. As a result, her solution is partly correct and partly incorrect.
Two trends, one strictly philosophical and the other religious, have contributed to the devaluing the mind and the worth of individuals. Since David Hume stated that no one could prove the existence of either the Mind or Matter, comedians have quipped "No Mind, Never Matter," and romantics have exploited the opening to push their own agendas. By subjugating the mind to feeling, as the Romantics have done, is a recipe for disaster. Rand believes that the reverse should be true, feelings subjugated to the mind.
For Ayn Rand, the mind and the rational process take precedence. For morality, the ability to produce. Religion, as is, is to be discarded, because it ultimately depends on a non-rational activity (the religious experience). So any morality based on a non-rational activity cannot be the basis of a moral code. Besides establishing a moral code on a religious basis, it is only a hop, skip, and a jump away from adopting a moral code from a romantic standard. So you can see where her anti-religious views arise.
For my part, I question whether mind or feeling should be subjugated to one or the other; believing, instead, that a delicate balance needs to be maintained else one falls into the warped condition experienced by the opposing sisters in "Sense and Sensibility." At a time when rhetoric is replacing rational thinking, especially in the political realm, the rational needs to be rebalanced with feelings (a terrible shock to most Romantics), else we too will face a world collapsing.
I also question Rand's attempt to replace a religious moral code with a purely rational moral code based solely on the ability to produce. The first objection, I admit, is solely emotional: that is, the image of Dagny Taggart as a willing sex-slave to the highest producer. Not based on love, that is irrational, rather attracted to the person exhibiting the highest morality, the ability to produce.
The second objection is purely practical: the atheist morality has one significant flaw that no one in Western thought has ever found a work-around - Pride. The ability to compete, no holds bared, without having to acknowledge any higher power would lead to a dog-eat-dog environment that would be Hell on earth for the majority of mankind. Heaven only for the producer, who can out fox, grab, or maneuver the other guy, even if the other guy has a better way - bury him!
My third objection is historic: for every Ford (who paid his staff above Union wage and implemented work safety processes) there were several dozen Andrew Carnegies, John D. Rockefellers, and J.P. Morgans (who abused their workers, stole others' ideas, and manipulated stock prices to increase their own income). Rand would protect all the above, although I suspect that Ford was closer to her model of Rearden then the later Industrialists.
Despite my objections, I believe that Any Rand correctly identified the imbalance between the rational and emotional as the underlying cause for the inability to produce or to solve significant political or economical problems. I still have to ponder her idea that the logical conclusion of the romantic is nullity. In any case, I will probably come back and re-read Atlas Shrugged many times in the future. Highly recommended.
Interesting Comments by Some Who Don't Like This Book April 30, 2008
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
I remember reading other works by Ms. Rand and enjoyed them thoroughly - very thought provoking. I have yet to read Atlas Shrugged but am looking forward to it. My comment here is one of observation. While reading through the reader reviews I came across a commentary by a Greg Nyquist. He basically objects to the Author's philosophy. That's fair enough. I checked out his profile, his other reviews, and it would seem that his taste in philosophy runs toward a more Marxist view of things. It makes sense that Ms. Rand's philosophy would rub him the wrong way. In fact anyone who feels strongly about socialism-communism would be advised to stay away from this or any of the author's works. If you have an open mind however, and believe that an ideal society does not model that of ant colony; that the value of each human being limitless, as is their potential, and that the individual ought to be encouraged to aspire to reach their potential in whatever endevour they choose, then by all means read her works. The strength of a society first begins with the individual and personal responsibiltiy and not at the end of a end of a Marxist whip.
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