Atlas Shrugged
April 21, 2011
- Author:
- Ayn Rand
- Publisher:
- Plume (8/1/1999)
Amazon | 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.
Comments (1)
by Phil Osborn
Atlas … is a great starting point for a new intellectual. Whether Rand is right on what issues – philosophical, economic, romantic or political, etc. – is less important for a newcomer to philosophical thought than the epistemological training one gets in the process of reading the novel. Very few people have a clear, consistent, comprehensive personal philosophy. This is what Rand presents, not on faith – which she considers anathema, but thru rigorous and intellectually exciting argument, taking place in contexts where it is both appropriate and sadly lacking in our daily lives. It would be truly unusual for anyone to read this novel and not in some way be changed, generally for the better.