Dutton 2009. Halfcloth hardback in dust
jacket, 1168 pp. Very nice copy, 1st ed. 35th anniversary edition with a new
introduction by Leonard Peikoff. Special edition for Saxo Bank.
Atlas Shrugged is a novel by Ayn Rand,
first published in 1957 in the United States. Rand's fourth and last
novel, it was also her longest, and the one she considered to be her
magnum opus in the realm of fiction writing. The book explores a
dystopian United States where leading innovators, ranging from
industrialists to artists, refuse to be exploited by society leading to
millionaires going on strike. The only clue to this strange circumstance
is the enigmatic question ""Who is John Galt?"" which turns out to be a
significant foreshadowing of the book's premises. The protagonist,
Dagny Taggart, sees society collapse around her as the government
increasingly asserts control over all industry (including Taggart
Transcontinental, the once mighty transcontinental railroad for which
she serves as the Vice President of Operations), while society's most
productive citizens, led by this mysterious John Galt, progressively
disappear. Galt describes the strike as ""stopping the motor of the
world"" by withdrawing the ""minds"" that drive society's growth and
productivity. In their efforts, these people ""of the mind"" hope to
demonstrate that a world in which the individual is not free to create
is doomed, that civilization cannot exist where every person is a slave
to society and government, and that the destruction of the profit motive
leads to the collapse of society. The novel's title is a reference to
Atlas, a Titan of Greek mythology, who in the novel is described as
""the giant who holds the weight of the world on his shoulders"". The
significance of this reference is seen in a conversation between the
characters of Francisco d'Anconia and Hank Rearden in which d'Anconia
asks of Rearden what sort of advice he would give to Atlas upon seeing
that ""the greater [the titan's] effort the heavier the world bore down
on his shoulders"". With Rearden unable to answer, Francisco gives his
own response: ""To shrug"". Atlas Shrugged includes elements of mystery
and science fiction,and it contains Rand's most extensive statement of
Objectivism in any of her works of fiction via a lengthy monologue
delivered by the strike's leader, John Galt. The theme of Atlas Shrugged,
as Rand described it, is ""the role of man's mind in existence"