Atlas Shrugged

Kindle version and good

A must read book for the present days where everyone want reservation for everything

Done! 1097 pages! And for the second time! I bet there must be like 50 masochists in the world who've done this. And a 100 who've even finished it once 😊. Select company guaranteed. Anyway, here's the review for 4 stars. As a creative fiction book: + Unforgettable characters + Sublime passages (see my highlights) + Skill to hold the story for over 1000 pages + The story ‐ Syrupy hero worship by Dagny As a philosophy: + The primacy given to science + The deep appreciation, almost instinctive, of the value of self-interest + The viewpoint that it serves no one to aid and abet the unproductive + The acceptance of teaming as vital to both self-interest and general success - The almost total repudiation of the weaknesses inherent in life for productivity and self-understanding; and her lack of wisdom in not making allowances, to avoid madness and as DNA can always mix out better in the next generation, being why the species tolerates reproduction of even the weakest - Her thoughts on the nature of existence (ontology) are undeveloped. On how we can know (epistemology) her idea of 'Objectivism' is derivative. In the end, we ask ourselves if it was worth reading. For me, the answer is yes. It (contiguous with The Fountainhead), has been one of the three books that have deeply influenced me in life towards dedication to the Quality of Thinking, which is our supreme treasure. ------------------- First review When it takes two nights of reading to progress 1%, I know it's a big book :-). Probably larger than Moby Dick and Gone With the Wind. How much time and speed I must have had when young to read this effortlessly! Still, it's gripping, pacy, and worth it for the story, and the absolute conviction of the purity of science, industry, and wealth.

The book is really of a good quality.

For the love of life, read this book! Its a literary masterpiece!! and this book brings you to the life. Dont attempt to read this book with a preconceived perception on Ayn Rand's works. To understand her philosophical thoughts of "Objectivism", you MUST read this book and read it twice or thrice.. Till that point, you might not be able to comprehend the concept of "objectivism". As some one said, "They have Ayn Rand. But we don't ". This book must be read by everyone during their graduation. That essentially adds and enriches your life with a code of Moral Values. And ofcourse, this has heightened my appreciation of my life!! my Employers!! my fellow human beings!! Here are few excerpts from the book which need to be inscribed on everybody's mind. At least, I did, after reading this book: What is Morality? "Judgement to distinguish right and wrong, Vision to see the truth, Courage to act upon it, Dedication to that which is good, Integrity to stand by the good at any price " "In order to live, man must act; in order to act, he must make choices; in order to make choices, he must define a code of values; in order to define a code of values, he must know what he is and where he is—i.e., he must know his own nature (including his means of knowledge) and the nature of the universe in which he acts—i.e., he needs metaphysics, epistemology, ethics, which means: philosophy. He cannot escape from this need; his only alternative is whether the philosophy guiding him is to be chosen by his mind or by chance." "Money is the barometer of the society's virtue. Money is so noble a medium that it does not compete with guns and it doesn't make terms with brutality. It will not permit a country to survive as half-property, half-loot. Money demands that you sell, not your weakness to men's stupidity , but your talent to their reason; it demands that you buy , not the shoddiest they offer, but the best that your money can find " "To the glory of mankind, there was , for the first and only time in history, "a country of money"-- and I have no higher or more reverent tribute to pay to America,for this means: a country of reason, justice, freedom, production, achievement. For the first time, man's mind and money were set free, and there were no fortunes-by-conquest, but only fortunes-by-work, and instead of swordsmen and slaves, there appeared the real maker of wealth, the greatest worker, the highest type of human being--the self-made man--the American industrialist. If you ask me to name the proudest distinction of Americans, I would choose--because it contains all the others --the fact that they are the people who created the phrase 'to make money'. No other language or nation have ever used these words before; men had always thought of wealth as a static quantity--to be seized , begged, inherited, shared, looted or obtained as a favor. Americans were the first to understand that wealth has to be created. The words 'to make money; holds the essence of human morality." "There is no way to rule innocent men. The only power any government has is the power to crack down on criminals. Well, when there aren't enough criminals, one makes them. One declares so many things to be a crime that it becomes impossible for men to live without breaking laws. Who wants a nation of law-abiding citizens? What's there in that for anyone? But just pass the kind of laws that can neither be observed nor enforced nor objectively interpreted--and you create a nation of lawbreakers --and then you cash in on guilt. Now that's the system, that's the game. "

Brilliant novel.You just get lost in it as one of the characters.

Started with this book but the font size is way too small ( may be owing to the book big size) . Don't know if it becomes double in size (2000 pgs) if the font size increased.

Horrible it’s a scam the text is so small and the quality is so bad it’s barely legible to the human eye

Non-libertarian here. Wow. This book took me 3 years (and one re-start 1/4 way in) to read. But it was worth it! I enjoy the forcefulness and certainty of Rand's writing, and the sheer scale of this book with its many characters and big ideas. Yes, this book does have many shallow 2-dimensional characters -- they're typically more "caricatures" than "characters," particularly the characters who stand for the type of people Rand clearly hated with almost vicious cynicism in the real world. Nevertheless, I enjoyed the decisiveness and conviction of the leads. It's refreshing, in fact, to have a book so hell-bent on its ideas and narrative without a hint of shades of gray, without any patience for human weakness or intellectual murkiness, and with endless joy and celebration of the drive and decisiveness that make some people so admirable. Rearden, Francisco, [kinda-obvious-but-still-a-spoiler character], and especially Dagny were people you could root for... assuming you're not one of the "looters" Rand has so much hate for. If you're a selfish, sneaky, dishonest, needy person, well, this book will be like a 1000-page whipping for you. That hatred of weak human beings is probably what I liked least about the book. Man, the hatred, it drips from the pages like a poison. The villains of this book aren't just dumb or misguided... They're portrayed as utterly hopeless and irredeemable in every way, useless lumps of flesh that are best destroyed under the wheels of their iron-willed betters. And in the real world, while the traits Rand hated exist in abundance and I understand and often share her dislike, people are not all such simple caricatures who should be discarded without any consideration for the qualities they DO have, or at least the potential they have. Rand seems to consciously ignore the idea that the world does "take all kinds" to function, and in doing so, misses out on some opportunities for her characters to find other ways to realize and express their intellectual and material values. You'll notice that nobody in this book has cancer. There are no children whom parents have to sacrifice for and love for no reason other than that the children are their own. There are no old men or women who are dying. The only children are Dagny and her friends who think like little adults, the only injuries are not terminal (i.e., minor injuries after airplane crash) and easily overcome with willpower and force of mind. Grappling with some of these things (like, I don't know, Dagny having leukemia) wouldn't necessarily have undermined Rand's philosophy (maybe); they could have made for some nuance to the way her characters' intellects and willpowers are exerted. People DO have a debt to others around them, whether it be someone stricken with a deadly disease being helped by their friends, or a toddler who needs protection and unpaid service from a parent. Again, these don't undermine Rand's philosophy necessarily, but she leaves a big gap for others to poke holes in her grand vision by not addressing such real-world issues. With a mind like hers, her narrative could have showed us how to make these things fit into her vision and philosophy, gave us some hint at an answer for how to deal with these things in a responsible way. She offers solutions to many things and maybe you can extrapolate some more... But for me, I don't see an answer to who will care for Dagny when she is old and feeble but still wants to be useful rather than shuttered, or who will clean toilets when everyone is trying to be a a fountain of intellect and creativity, or how the retarded and the simply dumb will find use for themselves in a world where everyone else is too busy pouring steel and being productive to notice. I wanted the book to provide some sense of these nuances, or at least express awareness that such nuance exists in real life, rather than just being a rally call to an absolute philosophy. Regardless, this is a grand book filled with things worth thinking about, whether you come to Rand's conclusions or not. I am not a libertarian or a conservative at all (and definitely didn't walk away thinking anything crazy like, "down with government! let the capitalists govern indirectly through their brilliance! Taxes are evil!"). Yet I still found much to admire and emulate in her characters, much to celebrate about the drive and power of people doing the things they are good at with conscious and determined effort. Many of us could learn a lot about how to work hard to best use our personal talents for our own good, and in so doing benefit everyone; many of us could learn a lot about the joy of working hard and being responsible for our own destinies. Don't read this book as a libertarian bible (a terrible misreading, I think), but instead...... Take it as a rally call for each of us to demand as little of one another as possible and instead demand as much from ourselves as possible, and have love for your own ability to do both of those things consciously. It's a powerful novel and I enjoyed even the parts that I consciously knew were attacks on societal systems I support in the real world. Come with an open mind and see the world from an absolute and infinitely self-assured perspective. I think you'll learn some good values even if Atlas Shrugged doesn't change your view of how to implement those values in your own life or society.

Fabulous Book However this copy font too small

Muy bueno

Embora escrito há mais de 50 anos, o mundo não aprendeu nada. A leitura de 'Atlas Shrugged' é sensacional ! Dizem que Ayn Rand era feminista, mas acho que é só porque ela colocou como heroína da história uma mulher. Mas uma mulher bem feminina. E isso é o de menos, diante da preocupação de todos de um mundo se corrompendo. Os muçulmanos uma vez disseram que iriam dominar o mundo e sem dar um tiro, porque achavam que o mundo ocidental iria se implodir. E o livro mostra os países americanos e europeus morrendo, o que estamos vendo hoje. Tentei assistir ao filme, mas o livro de 10 a 0, nos seus detalhes sobre pensamentos e filosofias de vida, que são cortados do filme.

The author saw the Russian revolution of 1917 at first-hand. She experienced its economic effects directly when her father's business was nationalised by force. The Russian revolution took place as a result of the country's military defeats during the First World War. It is interesting to note that there was also a revolution in 1905, after the national humiliation experienced in the Russo-Japanese war. It is open to speculation as to whether the autocratic Czar would have survived with a reformist government (Perestroika 1917?) if it has not rushed to the aid of Serbia in 1914 as part of its ill-fated pan-slavic foreign policy. However that debate is for another day. Ayn Rand depicts a socialist takeover of the United States, one that is as drastic but not as dramatic as Russia's. She also shies away from actually using the word 'socialism' or 'communism' in her novel. To her this would be shorthand and what she wants to do is describe the effects of collectivism without resorting to labels. The descent into socialism is depicted as the non-violent triumph of ideas, where the political, media and some of the business elites gradually come to accept the principle of 'from each according to their abilities, to each according to their needs' as a consequence of legally sanctioned industrial cartelisation, until it becomes national policy and full state control of the economy takes place, ostensibly to mitigate the effects of the cartels. Unlike Russia, this takes place in a democracy with an ostensibly free media so the changes that take place are gradual and more or less consensual amongst the majority. Somewhere along the way the US Constitution has been amended out of existence and the President is now known as the Head of the State. He works with a Politburo in all but name consisting of business cronies and power brokers. Rand maps the effect of the political and social changes throughout the novel in an intelligible fashion that people in a free country would understand and demonstrates how this socialism utterly depends on people to whom this concept is anathema. As the novel opens the economic collapse is under way, but no-one understands why. Rand depicts in her story the theory that collectivist economies only survive by coercing the most productive to continue to produce while at the same time denying them the true rewards of their labours by redistributing all the value they create while providing subsistence. One man, John Galt, realises this and organises a strike of the mind, of the creative entrepreneurs who drive or sustain progress through their creativity, innovation and organisational and management skill. As the skilled and competent disappear (this is done by having them choose 'voluntary simplicity', working in low-paid, menial positions that require no thought, or retreating to a valley concealed by a cloaking device) their successors find themselves unable to maintain the technological civilisation and the country regresses into a new stone age as supplies of raw materials and food diminish. The country also slides into dictatorship, as force replaces the price mechanism as the only way to drive the economy. State terror and the threat of unleashing WMDs on the populace are contemplated, but by then it is too late. The only people left to terrorise are simply not productive enough to sustain the economy. The novel was published in 1957 and it is interesting to note that a 'strike of the ablest' was actually under way in East Germany, where the young and the skilled were making use of an open border in Berlin to escape to West Germany. It was in response to the impending economic collapse (the only people left in the country was rapidly becoming the old, infirm and very young) that the Berlin Wall was constructed. Ayn Rand's motivation? Well she saw the rise of socialism in otherwise free countries like Britain and revolutionary movements in Cuba and South America. Soviet domination of Eastern Europe was a fact and perhaps she felt that a cautionary tale, in line with her developing philosophy, was necessary to prevent the growth of 'People's States' as she depicts taking over the world except the USA in her novel. She may have been worried that Free-Market Capitalism was in fact in decline. There has been a lot of criticism of the writing style of the novel. It is not generally fast-paced or dramatic and a lot of space is given over to philosophic thinking and speeches, especially John Galt's speech, which runs to several pages. However it has to be recognised that this is a book of ideas and these ideas are presented very well indeed. I have not read Mein Kampf or Das Kapital and nor do I intend to. I do however suspect that they do not project their ideas in such a concise and entertaining manner. This book defends and justifies free-market capitalism and gives commerce a soul. It has enhanced my understanding of the socio-economic environment I was brought up in and is arguably the only book I sincerely wish I had read in my teens. Although the book rejects altruism and self-sacrifice, it is my strong opinion that if you know anyone with a mind who is 15-20, this is the best present you can get them as it will give them something that is life-improving and life-affirming. However this is a book that can by people of all ages as it does not target a specific age range.