Book Bearings
Atlas Shrugged
- 1096 pages · about 18 hours
- First published 1936
- 84 editions
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1 About this book
Atlas Shrugged is set in a United States in decline, where heavy industry is being strangled by ever more burdensome laws and regulations. Dagny Taggart, a railroad executive, and Hank Rearden, a steel magnate, struggle to keep their companies alive against those who want to live off what they produce. Meanwhile the country's ablest business leaders are abandoning their companies and vanishing, one by one, and a mysterious figure called John Galt seems to be behind it. Ayn Rand's longest novel, published in 1957, is the fullest statement in fiction of the ideas she later developed into the philosophy of Objectivism.
- Classics
- Adventure
- Science fiction
- Power (Social sciences)
- Capitalism
- Success
- Individuality
- Classical literature
2 What to expect
Ayn Rand's enormous novel of ideas: in a decaying America, a railroad executive and a steel maker fight to keep working while the country's most capable people mysteriously disappear. It is part mystery, part romance and above all a vehicle for her philosophy of reason, individualism and unrestricted capitalism, set out in very long speeches. Its heroes and villains are drawn in black and white, and people tend to embrace it or reject it according to their politics.
Good for readers who want: a novel of ideas, a defense of individualism and capitalism, and an epic read.
3 About Ayn Rand
Bio adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0)
4 More by Ayn Rand
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