Atlas Shrugged

by Ayn Rand

Overview

Peopled by larger-than-life heroes and villains, charged with towering questions of good and evil, Atlas Shrugged is Ayn Rand’s magnum opus: a philosophical revolution told in the form of an action thriller—nominated as one of America’s best-loved novels by PBS’s The Great American Read.

Who is John Galt? When he says that he will stop the motor of the world, is he a destroyer or a liberator? Why does he have to fight his battles not against his enemies but against those who need him most? Why does he fight his hardest battle against the woman he loves?

You will know the answer to these questions when you discover the reason behind the baffling events that play havoc with the lives of the amazing men and women in this book. You will discover why a productive genius becomes a worthless playboy...why a great steel industrialist is working for his own destruction...why a composer gives up his career on the night of his triumph...why a beautiful woman who runs a transcontinental railroad falls in love with the man she has sworn to kill.

Atlas Shrugged, a modern classic and Rand’s most extensive statement of Objectivism—her groundbreaking philosophy—offers the reader the spectacle of human greatness, depicted with all the poetry and power of one of the twentieth century’s leading artists.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780451191144
Publisher:	Penguin Publishing Group
Publication date:	09/01/1996
Edition description:	Revised
Pages:	1088
Product dimensions:	6.88(w) x 4.30(h) x 1.77(d)
Lexile:	990L (what's this?)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Born February 2, 1905, Ayn Rand published her first novel, We the Living, in 1936. Anthem followed in 1938. It was with the publication of The Fountainhead (1943) and Atlas Shrugged (1957) that she achieved her spectacular success. Rand’s unique philosophy, Objectivism, has gained a worldwide audience. The fundamentals of her philosophy are put forth in three nonfiction books, Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology, The Virtues of Selfishness, and Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal. They are all available in Signet editions, as is the magnificent statement of her artistic credo, The Romantic Manifesto.

Date of Birth:

February 2, 1905

Date of Death:

March 6, 1982

Place of Birth:

St. Petersburg, Russia

Place of Death:

New York, New York

Education:

Graduated with highest honors in history from the University of Petrograd, 1924

Read an Excerpt

INTRODUCTION
(Continues…)

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Excerpted from "Atlas Shrugged"
by .
Copyright © 1996 Ayn Rand.
Excerpted by permission of Penguin Publishing Group.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

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What People are Saying About This

Alan Greenspan

Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand is a celebration of life and happiness. Justice is unrelenting. Creative individuals and undeviating purpose and rationality achieve joy and fulfillment. Parasites who persistently avoid either purpose or reason perish as they should.

Reading Group Guide

ATLAS SHRUGGED
by Ayn Rand

 

INTRODUCTION

Ayn Rand is one of America's favorite authors. In a recent Library of Congress/Book of the Month Club survey, American readers ranked Atlas Shrugged—her masterwork—as second only to the Bible in its influence on their lives. For decades, at scores of college campuses around the country, students have formed clubs to discuss the works of Ayn Rand. In 1998, the Oscar-nominated Ayn Rand: A Sense of Life, a documentary film about her life, played to sold-out venues throughout America and Canada. In recognition of her enduring popularity, the United States Postal Service in 1999 issued an Ayn Rand stamp.

About the Books

Atlas Shrugged (1957) is a mystery story, Ayn Rand once commented, "not about the murder of man's body, but about the murder—and rebirth—of man's spirit." It is the story of a man—the novel's hero—who says that he will stop the motor of the world, and does. The deterioration of the U.S. accelerates as the story progresses. Factories, farms, shops shut down or go bankrupt in ever larger numbers. Riots break out as food supplies become scarce. Is he, then, a destroyer or the greatest of liberators? Why does he have to fight his battle, not against his enemies but against those who need him most, including the woman, Dagny Taggart, a top railroad executive, whom he passionately loves? What is the world's motor—and the motive power of every man?

About Objectivism

 

ABOUT AYN RAND

Ayn Rand was born in St. Petersburg, Russia, on February 2, 1905. At the age of nine, she decided to make fiction-writing her career. In late 1925 she obtained permission to leave the USSR for a visit to relatives in the United States. Arriving in New York in February 1926, she first spent six months with her relatives in Chicago before moving to Los Angeles.

Recollections of Ayn Rand
A Conversation with Leonard Peikoff, Ph.D.,—Ayn Rand's longtime associate and intellectual heir

Related Titles

 

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS

Atlas Shrugged

1. What and where is the "utopia of greed"?
    
2. Why does Dagny Taggart, a woman of ruthless logic who passionately loves life, chase a mysterious stranger's plane in her own plane when she knows it will lead to her virtually certain death?
    
3. Why do Dagny Taggart and Lillian Rearden—both highly affluent women—fight over a cheap metallic bracelet? Who gets to keep the bracelet, and at what cost? What is Lillian's real motive in trapping her husband Hank in infidelity?
    
4. Why does Francisco d'Anconia, heir to the greatest fortune in the world and a productive genius with boundless ambition, seek ever more outrageous ways to destroy his own business empire? Why does he turn into a playboy who forsakes the woman he loves and instead seduces prominent women who are of no interest to him?
    
5. When an entire country tells them that their railroad bridge, constructed from a new ultralight metal, won't stand under the onrush of a speeding train, why are Dagny Taggart and Hank Rearden so confident that it will? Were you convinced by the arguments offered against them by their opponents? Whom did you side with? Why?
    
6. According to Atlas Shrugged, selfishness is both moral and practical. What does Ayn Rand mean by "selfishness"? Compare the actions and character of James Taggart, Hank Rearden, Orren Boyle, and Francisco d'Anconia: Who is selfish and who is not? Can you present arguments for or against Ayn Rand's view of selfishness? Contrast Ayn Rand's approach with that of the ethics of Christianity.
    
7. What basic motive unites people who brag about their sexual promiscuity and people who demand economic handouts from the government?
    
8. Explain the meaning and wider significance of the following quote from Atlas Shrugged: "The words 'to make money' hold the essence of human morality." Explain what ideas underlie the maxim that "money is the root of all good."
    
9. Capitalism is often defended by appeal to the "public good"; that is, solely because its economic efficiency benefits society. Contrast this with Ayn Rand's defense of capitalism, as dramatized in Atlas Shrugged.

The Fountainhead

1. When Roark comes uninvited to Dominique's bedroom in his rough, soiled workman's clothes, is the act that he commits rape? Why or why not?
    
2. Why does Gail Wynand, a self-made media and real-estate millionaire, seek to turn men into hypocrites? Why does he make a socialist defend management and a conservative defend labor?
    
3. Why does the struggling sculptor Steven Mallory attempt to gun down a famous newspaper columnist who champions the voiceless and the undefended?
    
4. Why does Peter Keating, a celebrity architect, plead with his unsuccessful and widely condemned friend, Hoard Roark, secretly to design a crucial housing project for him? Roark is an architect of unmatched integrity who scorns Keating—so why does he agree to do it?
    
5. Howard Roark refuses a major contract when he most needs it, arguing that his action was "the most selfish thing you've ever seen a man do." Why does he call this action selfish?
    
6. Why does Roark dynamite Cortlandt Homes? How does he defend his action? Is he a moral man, a practical man, both, or neither?
    
7. Both Howard Roark and Lois Cook are artists with a unique vision who are not accepted by the mainstream of society. What does Ayn Rand mean by "individualism"? Are they both individualists? Why or why not?
    
8. What does Ayn Rand mean by the terms "first-hander" and "second-hander"? Cite examples of each type from real life.

We the Living

1. When Kira Argounova, the novel's heroine, meets Leo Kovalensky, a handsome stranger who thinks she is a whore, why does she not correct him?
    
2. The Communist war hero and much feared secret police agent Andrei Taganov is a pure proletarian, completely devoted to the Party's cause. Why then does he lose respect for the Party—and why does he fall in love with Kira?
    
3. In a society that outlaws profit, what secret business deal does Leo, an aristocrat, make with Pavel Syerov, an important Communist? Why? Who profits from it?
    
4. How does the discovery by the secret police of one article of clothing in Leo's room set the course for the resolution of the story?
    
5. Although Communism's ideal state, the USSR, has collapsed, many Communists are still undeterred: they argue that Communism is good in theory but was misapplied by Stalin in practice. By reference to events in We the Living, what arguments can you present in response to such a position? How would Ayn Rand respond?
    
6. We the Living shows that under Communism the poor become much poorer. Some would argue that Communism fails the downtrodden because human nature is "not good enough." How would Ayn Rand respond to this? Where does she place the blame for the misery wrought by Communism?

Anthem

1. In a world that places the good of society above all else, why is a man with a revolutionary invention that would benefit everyone forced to run for his life?
    
2. Why is the hero willing to risk being burned at the stake in order to discover the meaning of "the unspeakable word"?
    
3. As fires ravaged the cities of the world at the close of the Unmentionable Times, what crucial values did men lose? What was gained or lost at the Dawn of the Great Rebirth of society?
    
4. What does Equality 7-2521 discover in the Uncharted Forest that removes his original dread of the place?
    
5. Compare the expulsion of Adam and Eve from the Garden of Eden with the story of Equality 7-2521. For what "sins" were each condemned? In what ways are Equality 7-2521 and Adam similar? How do they differ?
    
6. Anthem is set in a totalitarian future. But unlike the societies depicted in Orwell's 1984 and Huxley's Brave New World, Anthem presents a future in which candles and glazed windows are the latest advances. What point about technology was Ayn Rand making by portraying such a primitive future, and how do the events of the story establish that point?
    
7. For each of the following quotations, explain its role in the story and its wider significance:

   a) "It is a sin to write this. It is a sin to think words no others think."

   b) "I wished to know the meaning of things. I am the meaning."

   c) "I owe nothing to my brothers, nor do I gather debts from them."

Objectivism

1. What is meant by "selfishness," according to Objectivism? What is "sacrifice," and is it moral? How is Objectivism's approach to good and evil justified?
    
2. Reason, says Ayn Rand, is man's only means of knowledge. What is her definition of "reason"? Why does she reject people who claim that they can reach the truth by means of intuition, revelation, instinct, or extrasensory perception?
    
3. Happiness, holds Ayn Rand, is the normal condition of man. What does she mean by "happiness"? What is required to be happy? Compare Roark and Keating from The Fountainhead: Which one was happy? Why?
    
4. Emotions, according to Objectivism, are consequences of the ideas and values one holds. Use Objectivism's theory of emotions to explain the romantic-sexual feelings of James Taggart, of Francisco d'Anconia, and then of yourself.
    
5. Individual rights for Objectivism—as for the Founding Fathers—are the basic principles that should guide government. How does Ayn Rand define a "right"? Why does she reject the idea of a right to healthcare? Why does she reject both socialism and anarchy?
    
6. Capitalism, argues Objectivism, is the only moral social system. Explain this by reference to Objectivism's standard of right and wrong. Can you think of arguments against Ayn Rand's reasoning on this issue? How do you think she might reply to your arguments?
    
7. Why does Ayn Rand think that art is crucial? What is her favorite school of art? Why?

 

Editorial Reviews

The book's female protagonist, Dagny Taggart, struggles to manage a transcontinental railroad amid the pressures and restrictions of massive bureaucracy. Her antagonistic reaction to a libertarian group seeking an end to government regulation is later echoed and modified in her encounter with a utopian community, Galt's Gulch, whose members regard self-determination rather than collective responsibility as the highest ideal.

Encyclopedia of Literature

Atlas Shrugged is not merely a novel. It is also—or may I say: first of all—a cogent analysis of the evils that plague our society.”

economist and historian Ludwig von Mises

Ayn Rand is destined to rank in history as the outstanding novelist and most profound philosopher of the twentieth century.”

New York Daily Mirror

Narrator Scott Brick takes listeners on a journey so extraordinary they’ll hardly notice the book’s length. While his performance offers little in the way of theatrics, Brick is capable of garnering sympathy and, perhaps most importantly, devout attention for Rand’s plot and characters. On the surface, Brick’s voice is a cool, unrelenting force determined to capture every facet of Rand’s complex story. But amid his calm and collected delivery, he taps into a more colorful emotional palette that will keep listeners involved. Brick’s subtle delivery holds far more than meets the ear.”

AudioFile

Countless individuals working to secure liberty have found inspiration in the works of Ayn Rand. With her unique ability to depict heroism, idealism, and romance behind the creativity of the individual, Rand inspires readers to come to the defense of free minds and free markets.”

Institute for Justice Chip Mellor

[A] vibrant and powerful novel of ideas.”

New York Herald Tribune

Rand’s most notable novel asks the question: What happens to the world when the prime movers [inventors and scientists] go on strike? Narrator Scott Brick takes listeners on a journey so extraordinary they’ll hardly notice the book’s length. While his performance offers little in the way of theatrics, Brick is capable of garnering sympathy and, perhaps most importantly, devout attention for Rand’s plot and characters. On the surface, Brick’s voice is a cool, unrelenting force determined to capture every facet of Rand’s complex story. But amid his calm and collected delivery, he taps into a more colorful emotional palette that will keep listeners involved. Brick’s subtle delivery holds far more than meets the ear. L.B. © AudioFile 2009, Portland, Maine

JULY 2009 - AudioFile