Atlas Shrugged

Publishers Weekly, January 6, 1997
Winner of the Listen Up Award-Best Packaging/Cover Art of 1996 [brought to you by HighBridge Audio] –This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

"Who is John Galt?" is the immortal question posed at the beginning of Ayn Rand's masterpiece. The answer is the astonishing story of a man who said he would stop the motor of the worldand did. As passionate as it is profound, Atlas Shrugged is one of the most influential novels of our time. In it, Rand dramatizes the main tenets of Objectivism, her philosophy of rational selfishness. She explores the ramifications of her radical thinking in a world that penalizes human intelligence and integrity. Part mystery, part thriller, part philosophical inquiry, part volatile love affair, Atlas Shrugged is the book that confirmed Ayn Rand as one of the most popular novelist and most respected thinkers of the 20th century.

<I>Who is John Galt?</I><P>This famous rhetorical question rings through Ayn Rand's best-selling novel as the people's anthem of despair in depressed economic times. <P>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. <P>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.

The Merriam-Webster Encyclopedia of Literature
Novel by Ayn Rand, published in 1957. 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. The novel contains the most complete presentation of Rand's personal philosophy, known as objectivism, in fictional form. –This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

About the Author
AYN RAND is the author of Anthem, The Fountainhead, and Atlas Shrugged, and numerous non-fiction essays on philosophy, ethics, politics, art, and literature. Her philosophy, Objectivism, has gained a worldwide audience of adherents and admirers. She died in March 1982.