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Atlas Shrugged

February 15, 2024

This article is about the novel. For the film adaptations, see Atlas Shrugged (film series).

Atlas Shrugged is a 1957 novel by Ayn Rand. It is her longest novel, the fourth and final one published during her lifetime, and the one she considered her magnum opus in the realm of fiction writing.[1] She described the theme of Atlas Shrugged as "the role of man's mind in existence" and it includes elements of science fiction, mystery and romance. The book explores a number of philosophical themes from which Rand would subsequently develop Objectivism, including reason, property rights, individualism, libertarianism and capitalism, and depicts what Rand saw as the failures of governmental coercion. Of Rand's works of fiction, it contains her most extensive statement of her philosophical system.

Atlas Shrugged
First edition
AuthorAyn Rand
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish
Genre
PublishedOctober 10, 1957
PublisherRandom House
Pages1,168 (first edition)
AwardsPrometheus Award – Hall of Fame
1983
OCLC412355486

The book depicts a dystopian United States in which private businesses suffer under increasingly burdensome laws and regulations. Railroad executive Dagny Taggart and her lover, steel magnate Hank Rearden, struggle against "looters" who want to exploit their productivity. They discover that a mysterious figure called John Galt is persuading other business leaders to abandon their companies and disappear as a strike of productive individuals against the looters. The novel ends with the strikers planning to build a new capitalist society based on Galt's philosophy.

Atlas Shrugged received largely negative reviews, but achieved enduring popularity and ongoing sales in the following decades. The novel has been cited as an influence on a variety of libertarian and conservative thinkers and politicians. After several unsuccessful attempts to adapt the novel for film or television, a film trilogy was released from 2011 to 2014 to negative reviews, and two theatrical adaptations have been staged.

Synopsis edit

Setting edit

Atlas Shrugged is set in a dystopian United States at an unspecified time, in which the country has a "National Legislature" instead of Congress and a "Head of State" instead of a President. The US appears to be approaching an economic collapse, with widespread shortages, business failures, and decreased productivity. Writer Edward Younkins said, "The story may be simultaneously described as anachronistic and timeless. The pattern of industrial organization appears to be that of the late 1800s—the mood seems to be close to that of the depression-era 1930s. Both the social customs and the level of technology remind one of the 1950s".[2] Many early 20th-century technologies are available, but later technologies such as jet planes and computers are largely absent.[3] There is very little mention of historical people or events, not even major events such as World War II.[4] Aside from the United States, most countries are referred to as "People's States" that are implied to be either socialist or communist.[2][5]

Plot edit

See also: List of Atlas Shrugged characters
 
Rand studied operations of the New York Central Railroad as research for the story.

Dagny Taggart, the operating vice-president of Taggart Transcontinental Railroad, keeps the company going amid a sustained economic depression. As economic conditions worsen and government enforces statist controls on successful businesses, people repeat the cryptic phrase "Who is John Galt?" which means: "Don't ask questions nobody can answer";[6] or more broadly, "Why bother?". Her brother Jim, the railroad's president, seems to make irrational decisions, such as buying from Orren Boyle's unreliable Associated Steel. Dagny is also disappointed to discover that the Argentine billionaire Francisco d'Anconia, her childhood friend and first love, is risking his family's copper company by constructing the San Sebastián copper mines, even though Mexico will probably nationalize them. Despite the risk, Jim and Boyle invest heavily in a railway for the region while ignoring the Rio Norte Line in Colorado, where entrepreneur Ellis Wyatt has discovered large oil reserves. Mexico nationalizes the mines and railroad line, but the mines are discovered to be worthless. To recoup the railroad's losses, Jim influences the National Alliance of Railroads to prohibit competition in prosperous areas such as Colorado. Wyatt demands that Dagny supply adequate rails to his wells before the ruling takes effect.

In Philadelphia, self-made steel magnate Hank Rearden develops Rearden Metal, an alloy lighter and stronger than conventional steel. Dagny opts to use Rearden Metal in the Rio Norte Line, becoming the first major customer for the product. After Hank refuses to sell the metal to the State Science Institute, a government research foundation run by Dr. Robert Stadler, the Institute publishes a report condemning the metal without identifying problems with it. As a result, many significant organizations boycott the line. Although Stadler agrees with Dagny's complaints about the unscientific tone of the report, he refuses to override it. To protect Taggart Transcontinental from the boycott, Dagny decides to build the Rio Norte Line as an independent company named the John Galt Line.

Hank is unhappy with his manipulative wife Lillian, but feels obliged to stay with her. He is attracted to Dagny, and when he joins her for the inauguration of the John Galt Line, they become lovers. On a vacation, Hank and Dagny discover an abandoned factory with an incomplete but revolutionary motor that runs on atmospheric static electricity. They begin searching for the inventor, and Dagny hires scientist Quentin Daniels to reconstruct the motor. However, a series of economically harmful directives are issued by Wesley Mouch, a former Rearden lobbyist who betrayed Hank in return for a job leading a government agency. Wyatt and other important business leaders quit and disappear, leaving their industries to failure.

From conversations with Francisco, Dagny and Hank realize he is hurting his copper company intentionally, although they do not understand why. When the government imposes a directive that forbids employees from leaving their jobs and nationalizes all patents, Dagny violates the law by resigning in protest. To gain Hank's compliance, the government blackmails him with threats to publicize his affair with Dagny. After a major disaster in one of Taggart Transcontinental's tunnels, Dagny returns to work. On her return, she receives notice that Quentin Daniels is also quitting in protest, and she rushes across the country to convince him to stay.

 
Ouray, Colorado was the basis for Rand's descriptions of Galt's Gulch.

On her way to Daniels, Dagny meets a hobo with a story that reveals the motor was invented and abandoned by an engineer named John Galt, who is the inspiration for the common saying. When she chases after Daniels in a private plane, she crashes and discovers the secret behind the disappearances of business leaders: Galt is leading a strike of "the men of the mind". She has crashed in their hiding place, an isolated valley known as Galt's Gulch. As she recovers from her injuries, the strikers explain their motives, and she learns that the strikers include Francisco and many prominent people, such as her favorite composer, Richard Halley, and infamous pirate Ragnar Danneskjöld. Dagny falls in love with Galt, who asks her to join the strike.

Reluctant to abandon her railroad, Dagny leaves Galt's Gulch, but finds the government has devolved into dictatorship. Francisco finishes sabotaging his mines and quits. After he helps stop an armed takeover of Hank's steel mill, Francisco convinces Hank to join the strike. Galt follows Dagny to New York, where he hacks into a national radio broadcast to deliver a three-hour speech that explains the novel's theme and Rand's Objectivism.[7] The authorities capture Galt, unsuccessfully attempt to persuade him to lead the restoration of the country's economy, and torture him when he refuses. The government collapses, and the novel closes as Galt announces that the strikers can rejoin the world.

History edit

Context and writing edit

 
Ayn Rand in 1943

Rand's stated goal for writing the novel was "to show how desperately the world needs prime movers and how viciously it treats them" and to portray "what happens to the world without them".[8] The core idea for the book came to her during a 1943 telephone conversation with her friend Isabel Paterson, who asserted that Rand owed it to her readers to write fiction about her philosophy. Rand disagreed and replied, "What if I went on strike? What if all the creative minds of the world went on strike? … That would make a good novel". After the conversation ended, Rand's husband Frank O'Connor, who had overheard, affirmed to Rand, "That would make a good novel."[9] Rand then began Atlas Shrugged to depict the morality of rational self-interest,[10] by exploring the consequences of a strike by intellectuals refusing to supply their inventions, art, business leadership, scientific research, or new ideas to the rest of the world.[11]

Rand began the first draft of the novel on September 2, 1946.[12] She initially thought it would be easy to write and completed quickly, but as she considered the complexity of the philosophical issues she wanted to address, she realized it would take longer.[13] After ending a contract to write screenplays for Hal Wallis and finishing her obligations for the film adaptation of The Fountainhead, Rand worked full-time on the novel that she tentatively titled The Strike. By the summer of 1950, she had written 18 chapters;[14] by September 1951, she had written 21 chapters and was working on the last of the novel's three sections.[15]

As Rand completed new chapters, she read them to a circle of young admirers who had begun gathering at her home to discuss philosophy. This group included Nathaniel Branden, his wife Barbara Branden, Barbara's cousin Leonard Peikoff, and economist Alan Greenspan.[16] Progress on the novel slowed considerably in 1953, when Rand began working on Galt's lengthy radio address. She spent more than two years completing the speech, finishing it on October 13, 1955.[17] The remaining chapters proceeded more quickly, and by November 1956 Rand was ready to submit the almost-completed manuscript to publishers.[18]

Atlas Shrugged was Rand's last completed work of fiction. It marked a turning point in her life—the end of her career as a novelist and the beginning of her role as a popular philosopher.[19][20]

Influences edit

 
Rand used interviews with scientist J. Robert Oppenheimer for the character Robert Stadler.

Rand biographer Anne Heller traces some ideas that would go into Atlas Shrugged back to a never-written novel that Rand outlined when she was a student at Petrograd State University. The futuristic story featured an American heiress luring the most talented men away from a mostly communist Europe. The heiress would have had an assistant called Eddie Willers, the name of Dagny's assistant in Atlas Shrugged.[21]

To depict the industrial setting of Atlas Shrugged, Rand conducted research on the American railroad and steel industries. She toured and inspected a number of industrial facilities, such as the Kaiser Steel plant,[22] visited facilities of the New York Central Railroad,[23][24] and briefly operated a locomotive on the Twentieth Century Limited.[25] Rand also used her previous research for an uncompleted screenplay about the development of the atomic bomb, including her interviews of J. Robert Oppenheimer, which influenced the character Robert Stadler and the novel's depiction of the development of "Project X".[26]

Rand's descriptions of Galt's Gulch were based on the town of Ouray, Colorado, which Rand and her husband visited in 1951 when they were relocating from Los Angeles to New York.[15] Other details of the novel were affected by the experiences and comments of her friends. For example, her portrayal of leftist intellectuals (such as the characters Balph Eubank and Simon Pritchett) was influenced by the college experiences of Nathaniel and Barbara Branden,[27] and Alan Greenspan provided information on the economics of the steel industry.[28]

Libertarian writer Justin Raimondo described similarities between Atlas Shrugged and Garet Garrett's 1922 novel The Driver, which is about an idealized industrialist named Henry Galt, who is a transcontinental railway owner trying to improve the world and fighting against government and socialism.[29] Raimondo believed the earlier novel influenced Rand's writing in ways she failed to acknowledge, although there was no "word-for-word plagiarism“ and The Driver was published four years before Rand emigrated to the United States.[30] Journalist Jeff Walker echoed Raimondo's comparisons in his book The Ayn Rand Cult and listed The Driver as one of several unacknowledged precursors to Atlas Shrugged.[31] In contrast, Chris Matthew Sciabarra said he "could not find any evidence to link Rand to Garrett"[32] and considered Raimondo's claims to be "unsupported".[33] Liberty magazine editor R. W. Bradford said Raimondo made an unconvincing comparison based on a coincidence of names and common literary devices.[34]

Publishing history edit

 
Random House CEO Bennett Cerf oversaw the novel's publication in 1957.

Due to the success of Rand's 1943 novel The Fountainhead, she had no trouble attracting a publisher for Atlas Shrugged. This was a contrast to her previous novels, which she had struggled to place. Even before she began writing it, she had been approached by publishers interested in her next novel. However, her contract for The Fountainhead gave the first option to its publisher, Bobbs-Merrill Company. After reviewing a partial manuscript, they asked her to discuss cuts and other changes. She refused, and Bobbs-Merrill rejected the book.[35]

Hiram Hayden, an editor she liked who had left Bobbs-Merrill, asked her to consider his new employer, Random House. In an early discussion about the difficulties of publishing a controversial novel, Random House president Bennett Cerf proposed that Rand should submit the manuscript to multiple publishers simultaneously and ask how they would respond to its ideas, so she could evaluate who might best promote her work. Rand was impressed by the bold suggestion and by her overall conversations with them. After speaking with a few other publishers from about a dozen who were interested, Rand decided multiple submissions were not needed; she offered the manuscript to Random House. Upon reading the portion Rand submitted, Cerf declared it a "great book" and offered Rand a contract. It was the first time Rand had worked with a publisher whose executives seemed enthusiastic about one of her books.[36]

When the completed manuscript exceeded 600,000 words, Cerf asked Rand to make cuts, but backed off when she compared the idea to cutting the Bible.[37] With 1168 pages in the first edition, Atlas Shrugged is Rand's longest published book.[38]

Random House published the novel on October 10, 1957. The initial print run was 100,000 copies. The first paperback edition was published by New American Library in July 1959, with an initial run of 150,000.[39] A 35th-anniversary edition was published by E. P. Dutton in 1992, with an introduction by Rand's heir, Leonard Peikoff.[40] The novel has been translated into more than 30 languages.[a]

Title and chapters edit

 
The title refers to the mythological Atlas.

The working title of the novel was The Strike, but Rand thought this title would reveal the mystery element of the novel prematurely.[42] She was pleased when her husband suggested Atlas Shrugged, previously the title of a single chapter, for the book.[43] The title is a reference to Atlas, a Titan in Greek mythology, who is described in the novel as "the giant who holds the world on his shoulders".[b] The significance of this reference appears in a conversation in which Francisco d'Anconia asks Rearden what advice he would give Atlas if "the greater [the Titan's] effort, the heavier the world bore down on his shoulders". With Rearden unable to answer, d'Anconia gives his own advice: "To shrug".[45]

The novel is divided into three parts consisting of ten chapters each. Each part is named in honor of one of Aristotle's laws of logic: "Non-Contradiction" after the law of noncontradiction; "Either-Or", which is a reference to the law of excluded middle; and "A Is A" in reference to the law of identity.[46] Each chapter also has a title; Atlas Shrugged is the only one of Rand's novels to use chapter titles.[47]

Themes edit

Philosophy edit

Main article: Objectivism

The story of Atlas Shrugged dramatically expresses Rand's ethical egoism, her advocacy of "rational selfishness", whereby all of the principal virtues and vices are applications of the role of reason as man's basic tool of survival (or a failure to apply it): rationality, honesty, justice, independence, integrity, productiveness, and pride. Rand's characters often personify her view of the archetypes of various schools of philosophy for living and working in the world. Robert James Bidinotto wrote, "Rand rejected the literary convention that depth and plausibility demand characters who are naturalistic replicas of the kinds of people we meet in everyday life, uttering everyday dialogue and pursuing everyday values. But she also rejected the notion that characters should be symbolic rather than realistic."[48] and Rand herself stated, "My characters are never symbols, they are merely men in sharper focus than the audience can see with unaided sight. ... My characters are persons in whom certain human attributes are focused more sharply and consistently than in average human beings".[48]

In addition to the plot's more obvious statements about the significance of industrialists to society, and the sharp contrast to Marxism and the labor theory of value, this explicit conflict is used by Rand to draw wider philosophical conclusions, both implicit in the plot and via the characters' own statements. Atlas Shrugged caricatures fascism, socialism, communism, and any state intervention in society, as allowing unproductive people to "leech" the hard-earned wealth of the productive, and Rand contends that the outcome of any individual's life is purely a function of their ability, and that any individual could overcome adverse circumstances, given ability and intelligence.[49]

Sanction of the victim edit

The concept "sanction of the victim" is defined by Leonard Peikoff as "the willingness of the good to suffer at the hands of the evil, to accept the role of sacrificial victim for the 'sin' of creating value".[50] Accordingly, throughout Atlas Shrugged, numerous characters are frustrated by this sanction, as when Hank Rearden appears duty-bound to support his family, despite their hostility toward him; later, the principle is stated by Dan Conway: "I suppose somebody's got to be sacrificed. If it turned out to be me, I have no right to complain". John Galt further explains the principle: "Evil is impotent and has no power but that which we let it extort from us", and, "I saw that evil was impotent ... and the only weapon of its triumph was the willingness of the good to serve it".[51]

Government and business edit

Rand's view of the ideal government is expressed by John Galt: "The political system we will build is contained in a single moral premise: no man may obtain any values from others by resorting to physical force", whereas "no rights can exist without the right to translate one's rights into reality—to think, to work and to keep the results—which means: the right of property".[52] Galt himself lives a life of laissez-faire capitalism.[53]

In the world of Atlas Shrugged, society stagnates when independent productive agencies are socially demonized for their accomplishments. This is in agreement with an excerpt from a 1964 interview with Playboy magazine, in which Rand states: "The action in Atlas Shrugged takes place at a time when society has reached the stage of dictatorship."[54]

Rand also depicts public choice theory, such that the language of altruism is used to pass legislation nominally in the public interest (e.g., the "Anti-Dog-Eat-Dog Rule", and "The Equalization of Opportunity Bill"), but more to the short-term benefit of special interests and government agencies.[55]

Property rights and individualism edit

Rand's heroes continually oppose "parasites", "looters", and "moochers" who demand the benefits of the heroes' labor. Edward Younkins describes Atlas Shrugged as "an apocalyptic vision of the last stages of conflict between two classes of humanity—the looters and the non-looters. The looters are proponents of high taxation, big labor, government ownership, government spending, government planning, regulation, and redistribution".[56]

"Looters" are Rand's depiction of bureaucrats and government officials, who confiscate others' earnings by the implicit threat of force ("at the point of a gun"). Some officials execute government policy, such as those who confiscate one state's seed grain to feed the starving citizens of another; others exploit those policies, such as the railroad regulator who illegally sells the railroad's supplies for his own profit. Both use force to take property from the people who produced or earned it.

"Moochers" are Rand's depiction of those unable to produce value themselves, who demand others' earnings on behalf of the needy, but resent the talented upon whom they depend, and appeal to "moral right" while enabling the "lawful" seizure by governments.

The character Francisco d'Anconia indicates the role of "looters" and "moochers" in relation to money: "So you think that money is the root of all evil? ... Have you ever asked what is the root of money? Money is a tool of exchange, which can't exist unless there are goods produced and men able to produce them. ... Money is not the tool of the moochers, who claim your product by tears, or the looters who take it from you by force. Money is made possible only by the men who produce."[57]

Genre edit

The novel includes elements of mystery, romance, and science fiction.[58][59] Rand referred to Atlas Shrugged as a mystery novel, "not about the murder of man's body, but about the murder—and rebirth—of man's spirit".[60] Nonetheless, when asked by film producer Albert S. Ruddy if a screenplay could focus on the love story, Rand agreed and reportedly said, "That's all it ever was".[59] Technological progress and intellectual breakthroughs in scientific theory appear in Atlas Shrugged, leading some observers to classify it in the genre of science fiction.[61] Fictional inventions such as Galt's motor, Rearden Metal, and Project X (a sonic weapon) are important to the plot.[62] Science fiction historian John J. Pierce describes it as a "romantic suspense novel" that is "at least a borderline case" of science fiction,[63] specifically libertarian science fiction based on its political themes.[64] The novel's focus on philosophical issues, including ethics and metaphysics, marks it as a philosophical novel.[65][66]

Reception edit

Sales edit

 
Rand in 1957

Atlas Shrugged debuted at number 13 on The New York Times Best Seller list three days after its publication. It peaked at number 3 on December 8, 1957, and was on the list for 22 consecutive weeks.[67] By 1984, its sales had exceeded five million copies.[68] Sales of Atlas Shrugged increased following the financial crisis of 2007–2008. The novel's sales in 2009 exceeded 500,000 copies,[69] and it sold 445,000 copies in 2011.[70] As of 2022, the novel had sold 10 million copies.[71]

Contemporary reviews edit

Atlas Shrugged was generally disliked by critics. Rand scholar Mimi Reisel Gladstein later wrote that "reviewers seemed to vie with each other in a contest to devise the cleverest put-downs"; one called it "execrable claptrap", while another said it showed "remorseless hectoring and prolixity".[72] In the Saturday Review, Helen Beal Woodward said that the novel was written with "dazzling virtuosity" but was "shot through with hatred".[73] In The New York Times Book Review, Granville Hicks similarly said the book was "written out of hate".[74] The reviewer for Time magazine asked: "Is it a novel? Is it a nightmare? Is it Superman – in the comic strip or the Nietzschean version?"[75] Whittaker Chambers wrote what was later called the novel's most "notorious" review[76][77] for the conservative magazine National Review, where he called it "remarkably silly"[78] and said it "can be called a novel only by devaluing the term".[79] He predicted that practicing Rand's godless ideology would lead to a dictatorship similar to Nazism or Stalinist Communism, and said that within the novel "a voice can be heard ... commanding: 'To a gas chamber—go!'".[80]

There were some positive reviews. Richard McLaughlin, reviewing the novel for The American Mercury, described it as a "long overdue" polemic against the welfare state with an "exciting, suspenseful plot", although unnecessarily long. He drew a comparison with the antislavery novel Uncle Tom's Cabin, saying that a "skillful polemicist" did not need a refined literary style to have a political impact.[81] Journalist and book reviewer John Chamberlain, writing in the New York Herald Tribune, found Atlas Shrugged satisfying on many levels: as science fiction, as a "philosophical detective story", and as a "profound political parable".[82]

Influence and legacy edit

 
 
 
 
Notable figures who have expressed admiration for Atlas Shrugged include (clockwise from upper left) Austrian-American economist Ludwig von Mises, American commentator Glenn Beck, Israeli politician Ayelet Shaked, and Associate US Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas.

Atlas Shrugged has attracted an energetic and committed fan base. Each year, the Ayn Rand Institute donates 400,000 copies of works by Rand, including Atlas Shrugged, to high school students.[60] According to a 1991 survey done for the Library of Congress and the Book of the Month Club, Atlas Shrugged was ranked second among the books that made the most difference in the lives of 17 out of 2,032 Book-of-the-Month club members who responded, between the Bible and M. Scott Peck's The Road Less Traveled.[83][84] Modern Library's 1998 nonscientific online poll of the 100 best novels of the 20th century found Atlas rated No. 1, although it was not included on the list chosen by the Modern Library board of authors and scholars.[85][86] The 2018 PBS Great American Read television series found Atlas Shrugged rated number 20 out of 100 novels,[87] based on a YouGov survey "asking Americans to name their most-loved novel".[88]

Rand's impact on contemporary libertarian thought has been considerable. The title of one libertarian magazine, Reason: Free Minds, Free Markets, is taken from John Galt, the hero of Atlas Shrugged, who argues that "a free mind and a free market are corollaries". In a tribute written on the 20th anniversary of the novel's publication, libertarian philosopher John Hospers praised it as "a supreme achievement, guaranteed of immortality".[89] In 1997, the libertarian Cato Institute held a joint conference with The Atlas Society, an Objectivist organization, to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the publication of Atlas Shrugged.[90] At this event, Howard Dickman of Reader's Digest stated that the novel had "turned millions of readers on to the ideas of liberty" and said that the book had the important message of the readers' "profound right to be happy".[90]

Rand's former business partner and lover Nathaniel Branden expressed differing views of Atlas Shrugged. He was initially quite favorable to it, and even after he and Rand ended their relationship, he still referred to it in an interview as "the greatest novel that has ever been written", although he found "a few things one can quarrel with in the book".[91] However, in 1984 he argued that Atlas Shrugged "encourages emotional repression and self-disowning" and that Rand's works contained contradictory messages. He criticized the potential psychological impact of the novel, stating that Galt's recommendation to respond to wrongdoing with "contempt and moral condemnation" clashes with the view of psychologists who say this only causes the wrongdoing to repeat itself.[92]

The Austrian School economist Ludwig von Mises admired the unapologetic elitism he saw in Rand's work. In a letter to Rand written a few months after the novel's publication, he said it offered "a cogent analysis of the evils that plague our society, a substantiated rejection of the ideology of our self-styled 'intellectuals' and a pitiless unmasking of the insincerity of the policies adopted by governments and political parties ... You have the courage to tell the masses what no politician told them: you are inferior and all the improvements in your conditions which you simply take for granted you owe to the efforts of men who are better than you."[93]

Murray Rothbard, another Austrian School economist, wrote a letter to Rand in 1958 in which he praised the book as "an infinite treasure house" and "not merely the greatest novel ever written, [but] one of the very greatest books ever written, fiction or nonfiction".[94] Rothbard soon distanced himself from Rand due to various disagreements in philosophy, and in the early 1960s he wrote a satirical one-act play titled Mozart Was a Red that spoofed Rand (as the character Carson Sand) and the novel (as Sand's book The Brow of Zeus).[95]

In the years immediately following the novel's publication, many American conservatives, such as William F. Buckley Jr., strongly disapproved of Rand and her Objectivist message. In addition to the strongly critical review by Whittaker Chambers, Buckley published a number of critical pieces: Russell Kirk called Objectivism an "inverted religion"; Frank Meyer accused Rand of "calculated cruelties" and called her message an "arid subhuman image of man"; and Garry Wills regarded Rand a "fanatic".[96]

 
A protester's sign at a 2009 Tea Party rally refers to the character John Galt.

In the 21st century, the novel was referred to more positively by some conservatives. In 2005, Republican Congressman Paul Ryan said that Rand was "the reason I got into public service", and he required his staff members to read Atlas Shrugged,[97] although in 2012 he said his supposed devotion to Rand was "an urban legend".[98] In 2006, Clarence Thomas, an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, cited Atlas Shrugged as among his favorite novels.[99] Following the financial crisis of 2007–2008, conservative commentators suggested the book as a warning against a socialistic reaction to the crisis. Conservative commentators Neal Boortz,[100] Glenn Beck, and Rush Limbaugh[101] offered praise of the book on their respective radio and television programs. In January 2009, conservative writer Stephen Moore wrote an article in The Wall Street Journal titled "Atlas Shrugged From Fiction to Fact in 52 Years",[102] and two months later Republican Congressman John Campbell said, "People are starting to feel like we're living through the scenario that happened in Atlas Shrugged."[103] Outside of the US, the novel has been cited as an influence by politicians such as Siv Jensen in Norway[104] and Ayelet Shaked in Israel.[105]

References to Atlas Shrugged have appeared in a variety of other popular entertainments. In the first season of the drama series Mad Men, Bert Cooper urges Don Draper to read the book, and Don's sales pitch tactic to a client indicates he has been influenced by the strike plot.[106] Less positive mentions of the novel occur in episodes of the animated comedies Futurama, where it appears among the library of books flushed down to the sewers to be read only by grotesque mutants, and South Park, where a newly literate character gives up on reading after experiencing Atlas Shrugged.[107] The critically acclaimed 2007 video game BioShock is widely considered to be a response to Atlas Shrugged. The story depicts a society that has collapsed due to Objectivism, and significant characters in the game owe their naming to Rand's work, which the game's creator Ken Levine found "really fascinating".[108]

In 2013, it was announced that Galt's Gulch, a settlement for libertarian devotees named for John Galt's safe haven, would be established near Santiago in Chile,[109] but the project collapsed amid accusations of fraud.[110]

Awards edit

Atlas Shrugged was a finalist for the US National Book Award for Fiction in 1958, but lost to The Wapshot Chronicle by John Cheever.[111] In 1983, it was one of the first two books given the Prometheus Awards' Hall of Fame Award for libertarian science fiction, alongside The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress by Robert Heinlein.[112]

Adaptations edit

Film edit

Early attempts edit

 
John Aglialoro optioned the film rights in 1992.

A film adaptation of Atlas Shrugged was in "development hell" for nearly 40 years.[113] In 1972, Albert S. Ruddy approached Rand to produce a cinematic adaptation. Rand insisted on having final script approval, which Ruddy refused to give her, thus preventing a deal. In 1978, Henry and Michael Jaffe negotiated a deal for an eight-hour Atlas Shrugged television miniseries on NBC. Screenwriter Stirling Silliphant wrote the adaptation and obtained approval from Rand on the final script. When Fred Silverman became president of NBC in 1979, the project was scrapped.[114]

Rand, a former Hollywood screenwriter herself, began writing her own screenplay, but died in 1982 with only one-third of it finished. Her heir, Leonard Peikoff, sold an option to Michael Jaffe and Ed Snider. Peikoff would not approve the script they wrote, and the deal fell through. In 1992, investor John Aglialoro paid Peikoff over $1 million for an option with full creative control.[114] Two new scripts – one by screenwriter Benedict Fitzgerald and another by Peikoff's wife, Cynthia Peikoff – were deemed inadequate, and Aglialoro refunded early investors in the project.[115]

In 1999, under Aglialoro's sponsorship, Ruddy negotiated a deal with Turner Network Television (TNT) for a four-hour miniseries, but the project was killed after TNT merged with AOL Time Warner. After the TNT deal fell through, Howard and Karen Baldwin obtained the rights while running Philip Anschutz's Crusader Entertainment. The Baldwins left Crusader to form Baldwin Entertainment Group in 2004 and took the rights to Atlas Shrugged with them. Michael Burns of Lions Gate Entertainment approached the Baldwins to fund and distribute Atlas Shrugged.[114] A draft screenplay was written by James V. Hart[116] and rewritten by Randall Wallace,[117] but was never produced.

2011–2014 trilogy edit

Main article: Atlas Shrugged (film series)

Atlas Shrugged was made into a film trilogy, released between 2011 and 2014.

Atlas Shrugged: Part I edit
Main article: Atlas Shrugged: Part I
 
Taylor Schilling played Dagny Taggart in Atlas Shrugged: Part I.

In May 2010, Brian Patrick O'Toole and Aglialoro wrote a screenplay, intent on filming in June 2010. Stephen Polk was set to direct.[118] However, Polk was fired and principal photography began on June 13, 2010, under the direction of Paul Johansson and produced by Harmon Kaslow and Aglialoro.[119] This resulted in Aglialoro's retention of his rights to the property, which were set to expire on June 15, 2010. Filming was completed on July 20, 2010,[120] and the movie was released on April 15, 2011.[121] Taylor Schilling played Dagny Taggart and Grant Bowler played Hank Rearden.[122]

The film was met with a generally negative reception from professional critics. Review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes gives the film a score of 12% based on 52 reviews, with an average score of 3.8 out of 10.[123] The film had under $5 million in total box office receipts,[121] considerably less than the estimated $20 million invested by Aglialoro and others.[124] The poor box office and critical reception made Aglialoro reconsider his plans for the rest of the trilogy,[125] but other investors convinced him to continue.[126]

Atlas Shrugged: Part II edit
Main article: Atlas Shrugged: Part II

On February 2, 2012, Kaslow and Aglialoro announced they had raised $16 million to fund Atlas Shrugged: Part II.[127] Principal photography began on April 2, 2012;[128] the producers hoped to release the film before the US presidential election in November.[129] Because the cast for the first film had not been contracted for the entire trilogy, different actors were cast for all the roles.[130] Samantha Mathis played Dagny, with Jason Beghe as Hank and Esai Morales as Francisco d'Anconia.[131]

The film was released on October 12, 2012, without a special screening for critics.[132] It earned $1.7 million on 1012 screens for the opening weekend, which at that time ranked as the 109th worst opening for a film in wide release.[133] Critical response was highly negative; Rotten Tomatoes gives the film a 4% rating based on 23 reviews, with an average score of 3.2 out of 10.[134] The film's final box office total was $3.3 million.[133]

Atlas Shrugged: Part III: Who Is John Galt? edit
Main article: Atlas Shrugged Part III: Who Is John Galt?

The third part in the series, Atlas Shrugged Part III: Who Is John Galt?, was released on September 12, 2014.[135] Dagny was played by Laura Regan, with Rob Morrow as Hank, Kristoffer Polaha as John Galt, and Joaquim de Almeida as Francisco. The movie opened on 242 screens and grossed $461,179 on its opening weekend; the final box office total was $851,690.[136] It was reviewed unfavorably by critics, holding a 0% at Rotten Tomatoes based on 10 reviews, with an average score of 1.8 out of 10.[137]

Future edit

In 2015, The New York Times reported that Ruddy had come to an agreement with Aglialoro to make a new television adaptation of Atlas Shrugged.[138]

On November 17, 2022, producer Jeremy Boreing announced that conservative media company The Daily Wire optioned the rights to Atlas Shrugged. The company plans to create a series based on the novel for the DailyWire+ video on demand service, in cooperation with the Bonfire Legend movie studio and Aglialoro's Atlas Distribution Company.[139]

Stage edit

Atlas Shrugged has been adapted twice as stage plays in German. In 2013, Stefan Bachmann [de; sv], director of the Schauspiel Köln in Cologne, staged Der Streik (The Strike), a four-hour adaptation co-written by Bachmann and Jens Gross [de]. Bachmann had begun the adaptation eight years earlier, but the theaters he worked for prior to Schauspiel Köln were dismissive of the idea.[140] In January 2021, director Nicolas Stemann presented a three-hour musical adaptation, also titled Der Streik, in Zürich, Switzerland. Stemann's version of the story from the novel is presented as a story within a story being staged by a "Church of Ayn Rand" that is associated with the alt-right and white supremacy.[141]

See also edit

Notes edit

  1. ^ According to the Ayn Rand Institute, Atlas Shrugged has been translated into Albanian, Bulgarian, Chinese, Czech, Danish, Dutch, Finnish, French, Georgian, German, Greek, Hebrew, Hungarian, Icelandic, Italian, Japanese, Kazakh, Korean, Marathi, Mongolian, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Russian, Serbian, Slovak, Spanish, Swedish, Turkish, and Ukrainian.[39][41]
  2. ^ In ancient myths, Atlas supported the sky, not the earth. Artistic depictions of Atlas holding a sphere (representing the sky) led to a later misconception that he held the earth.[44]

References edit

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  2. ^ a b Younkins, Edward W. "Atlas Shrugged: Ayn Rand's Philosophical and Literary Masterpiece". In Younkins 2007, pp. 9–10.
  3. ^ Hunt 1983, p. 85.
  4. ^ Hunt 1983, p. 86.
  5. ^ Hunt 1983, p. 82.
  6. ^ Rand 1995, p. 23.
  7. ^ Stolyarov II, G. "The Role and Essence of John Galt's Speech in Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged". In Younkins 2007, p. 99.
  8. ^ Rand 1997, p. 392.
  9. ^ Heller 2009, p. 165, italics original to source.
  10. ^ Rand 1986, p. 150.
  11. ^ Branden 1986, p. 53.
  12. ^ Heller 2009, p. 201.
  13. ^ Heller 2009, p. 202.
  14. ^ Heller 2009, p. 229.
  15. ^ a b Heller 2009, p. 235.
  16. ^ Heller 2009, pp. 240–243.
  17. ^ Heller 2009, pp. 260, 268.
  18. ^ Heller 2009, p. 271.
  19. ^ Younkins 2007, p. 1.
  20. ^ Gladstein 2000, p. 28.
  21. ^ Heller 2009, pp. 48–49.
  22. ^ Burns 2009, p. 126.
  23. ^ Heller 2009, p. 206.
  24. ^ Burns 2009, p. 125.
  25. ^ Heller 2009, p. 212.
  26. ^ Burns 2009, p. 107.
  27. ^ Heller 2009, p. 225.
  28. ^ Heller 2009, p. 242.
  29. ^ Raimondo 2008, pp. 237–241.
  30. ^ Raimondo 2008, p. 243.
  31. ^ Walker 1999, pp. 305–307.
  32. ^ Sciabarra 2013, p. 419.
  33. ^ Sciabarra 1999, p. 11.
  34. ^ Bradford 1994, pp. 57–58.
  35. ^ Ralston, Richard E. "Publishing Atlas Shrugged". In Mayhew 2009, pp. 123–124.
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  122. ^ Carter 2014, p. 85.
  123. ^ "Atlas Shrugged Part I". Rotten Tomatoes. Flixster. Retrieved June 21, 2021.
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  127. ^ Key 2012
  128. ^ DeSapio 2012
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  132. ^ Carter 2014, p. 95
  133. ^ a b Knegt 2013
  134. ^ "Atlas Shrugged: Part II". Rotten Tomatoes. Retrieved June 21, 2021.
  135. ^ Bond, Paul (March 26, 2014). "'Atlas Shrugged: Who Is John Galt?' Sets Sept. 12 Release Date (Exclusive)". The Hollywood Reporter. Retrieved September 21, 2014.
  136. ^ "Atlas Shrugged Part III: Who is John Galt?". The Numbers. Retrieved June 21, 2021.
  137. ^ "Atlas Shrugged: Who is John Galt?". Rotten Tomatoes. Retrieved June 21, 2021.
  138. ^ Cieply, Michael (November 2, 2015). "Film Producer Lands Rights to 'Atlas Shrugged' Novel". The New York Times. Gale General OneFile. p. B8(L). Albert S. Ruddy, whose credits include The Godfather, plans to make a six- to eight-hour TV version of Atlas Shrugged.
  139. ^ Wiseman 2022.
  140. ^ Brühwiler 2021, pp. 220–221.
  141. ^ Brühwiler 2021, pp. 221–222.

Works cited edit

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  • Carter, Joan (2014). "The History of the Atlas Shrugged Movie Trilogy". In Kelley, David (ed.). Atlas Shrugged: The Novel, the Films, the Philosophy. The Atlas Society. ISBN 978-1-5010-5924-7.
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  • Cocks, Neil, ed. (2020). Questioning Ayn Rand: Subjectivity, Political Economy, and the Arts. Palgrave Studies in Literature, Culture and Economics (Kindle ed.). Cham, Switzerland: Palgrave Macmillan. ISBN 978-3-030-53072-3.
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Further reading edit

  • Branden, Nathaniel (1962). "The Moral Revolution in Atlas Shrugged". Who is Ayn Rand?. Book co-authored with Barbara Branden. New York: Random House. pp. 3–65. OCLC 313377536. Reprinted by The Objectivist Center as a booklet in 1999, ISBN 1-57724-033-2.
  • Michalson, Karen (1999). "Who Is Dagny Taggart? The Epic Hero/ine in Disguise". In Gladstein, Mimi Reisel & Sciabarra, Chris Matthew (eds.). Feminist Interpretations of Ayn Rand. Re-reading the Canon. University Park, Pennsylvania: The Pennsylvania State University Press. ISBN 978-0-534-57625-7.
  • Wilt, Judith (1999). "On Atlas Shrugged". In Gladstein, Mimi Reisel & Sciabarra, Chris Matthew (eds.). Feminist Interpretations of Ayn Rand. Re-reading the Canon. University Park, Pennsylvania: The Pennsylvania State University Press. ISBN 978-0-534-57625-7.

External links edit

 
Wikibooks has a book on the topic of: Atlas Shrugged
 
Wikiquote has quotations related to Atlas Shrugged.
  • Atlas Shrugged (Centennial Edition) at Google Books
  • Atlas Shrugged on Goodreads
  • Free Online CliffsNotes for Atlas Shrugged
  • Page about Atlas Shrugged from the Ayn Rand Institute
  • Timeline of major events in the novel
  • Atlas Shrugged Essay Contest June 26, 2021, at the Wayback Machine
  • Atlas Shrugged study guide, themes, quotes, literary devices, teaching resources

February 15, 2024
atlas, shrugged, this, article, about, novel, film, adaptations, film, series, 1957, novel, rand, longest, novel, fourth, final, published, during, lifetime, considered, magnum, opus, realm, fiction, writing, described, theme, role, mind, existence, includes, . This article is about the novel For the film adaptations see Atlas Shrugged film series Atlas Shrugged is a 1957 novel by Ayn Rand It is her longest novel the fourth and final one published during her lifetime and the one she considered her magnum opus in the realm of fiction writing 1 She described the theme of Atlas Shrugged as the role of man s mind in existence and it includes elements of science fiction mystery and romance The book explores a number of philosophical themes from which Rand would subsequently develop Objectivism including reason property rights individualism libertarianism and capitalism and depicts what Rand saw as the failures of governmental coercion Of Rand s works of fiction it contains her most extensive statement of her philosophical system Atlas ShruggedFirst editionAuthorAyn RandCountryUnited StatesLanguageEnglishGenrePhilosophical fiction Libertarian science fiction Mystery fiction Romance novelPublishedOctober 10 1957PublisherRandom HousePages1 168 first edition AwardsPrometheus Award Hall of Fame 1983OCLC412355486The book depicts a dystopian United States in which private businesses suffer under increasingly burdensome laws and regulations Railroad executive Dagny Taggart and her lover steel magnate Hank Rearden struggle against looters who want to exploit their productivity They discover that a mysterious figure called John Galt is persuading other business leaders to abandon their companies and disappear as a strike of productive individuals against the looters The novel ends with the strikers planning to build a new capitalist society based on Galt s philosophy Atlas Shrugged received largely negative reviews but achieved enduring popularity and ongoing sales in the following decades The novel has been cited as an influence on a variety of libertarian and conservative thinkers and politicians After several unsuccessful attempts to adapt the novel for film or television a film trilogy was released from 2011 to 2014 to negative reviews and two theatrical adaptations have been staged Contents 1 Synopsis 1 1 Setting 1 2 Plot 2 History 2 1 Context and writing 2 2 Influences 2 3 Publishing history 2 4 Title and chapters 3 Themes 3 1 Philosophy 3 2 Sanction of the victim 3 3 Government and business 3 4 Property rights and individualism 4 Genre 5 Reception 5 1 Sales 5 2 Contemporary reviews 5 3 Influence and legacy 5 4 Awards 6 Adaptations 6 1 Film 6 1 1 Early attempts 6 1 2 2011 2014 trilogy 6 1 2 1 Atlas Shrugged Part I 6 1 2 2 Atlas Shrugged Part II 6 1 2 3 Atlas Shrugged Part III Who Is John Galt 6 1 3 Future 6 2 Stage 7 See also 8 Notes 9 References 9 1 Works cited 10 Further reading 11 External linksSynopsis editSetting edit Atlas Shrugged is set in a dystopian United States at an unspecified time in which the country has a National Legislature instead of Congress and a Head of State instead of a President The US appears to be approaching an economic collapse with widespread shortages business failures and decreased productivity Writer Edward Younkins said The story may be simultaneously described as anachronistic and timeless The pattern of industrial organization appears to be that of the late 1800s the mood seems to be close to that of the depression era 1930s Both the social customs and the level of technology remind one of the 1950s 2 Many early 20th century technologies are available but later technologies such as jet planes and computers are largely absent 3 There is very little mention of historical people or events not even major events such as World War II 4 Aside from the United States most countries are referred to as People s States that are implied to be either socialist or communist 2 5 Plot edit See also List of Atlas Shrugged characters nbsp Rand studied operations of the New York Central Railroad as research for the story Dagny Taggart the operating vice president of Taggart Transcontinental Railroad keeps the company going amid a sustained economic depression As economic conditions worsen and government enforces statist controls on successful businesses people repeat the cryptic phrase Who is John Galt which means Don t ask questions nobody can answer 6 or more broadly Why bother Her brother Jim the railroad s president seems to make irrational decisions such as buying from Orren Boyle s unreliable Associated Steel Dagny is also disappointed to discover that the Argentine billionaire Francisco d Anconia her childhood friend and first love is risking his family s copper company by constructing the San Sebastian copper mines even though Mexico will probably nationalize them Despite the risk Jim and Boyle invest heavily in a railway for the region while ignoring the Rio Norte Line in Colorado where entrepreneur Ellis Wyatt has discovered large oil reserves Mexico nationalizes the mines and railroad line but the mines are discovered to be worthless To recoup the railroad s losses Jim influences the National Alliance of Railroads to prohibit competition in prosperous areas such as Colorado Wyatt demands that Dagny supply adequate rails to his wells before the ruling takes effect In Philadelphia self made steel magnate Hank Rearden develops Rearden Metal an alloy lighter and stronger than conventional steel Dagny opts to use Rearden Metal in the Rio Norte Line becoming the first major customer for the product After Hank refuses to sell the metal to the State Science Institute a government research foundation run by Dr Robert Stadler the Institute publishes a report condemning the metal without identifying problems with it As a result many significant organizations boycott the line Although Stadler agrees with Dagny s complaints about the unscientific tone of the report he refuses to override it To protect Taggart Transcontinental from the boycott Dagny decides to build the Rio Norte Line as an independent company named the John Galt Line Hank is unhappy with his manipulative wife Lillian but feels obliged to stay with her He is attracted to Dagny and when he joins her for the inauguration of the John Galt Line they become lovers On a vacation Hank and Dagny discover an abandoned factory with an incomplete but revolutionary motor that runs on atmospheric static electricity They begin searching for the inventor and Dagny hires scientist Quentin Daniels to reconstruct the motor However a series of economically harmful directives are issued by Wesley Mouch a former Rearden lobbyist who betrayed Hank in return for a job leading a government agency Wyatt and other important business leaders quit and disappear leaving their industries to failure From conversations with Francisco Dagny and Hank realize he is hurting his copper company intentionally although they do not understand why When the government imposes a directive that forbids employees from leaving their jobs and nationalizes all patents Dagny violates the law by resigning in protest To gain Hank s compliance the government blackmails him with threats to publicize his affair with Dagny After a major disaster in one of Taggart Transcontinental s tunnels Dagny returns to work On her return she receives notice that Quentin Daniels is also quitting in protest and she rushes across the country to convince him to stay nbsp Ouray Colorado was the basis for Rand s descriptions of Galt s Gulch On her way to Daniels Dagny meets a hobo with a story that reveals the motor was invented and abandoned by an engineer named John Galt who is the inspiration for the common saying When she chases after Daniels in a private plane she crashes and discovers the secret behind the disappearances of business leaders Galt is leading a strike of the men of the mind She has crashed in their hiding place an isolated valley known as Galt s Gulch As she recovers from her injuries the strikers explain their motives and she learns that the strikers include Francisco and many prominent people such as her favorite composer Richard Halley and infamous pirate Ragnar Danneskjold Dagny falls in love with Galt who asks her to join the strike Reluctant to abandon her railroad Dagny leaves Galt s Gulch but finds the government has devolved into dictatorship Francisco finishes sabotaging his mines and quits After he helps stop an armed takeover of Hank s steel mill Francisco convinces Hank to join the strike Galt follows Dagny to New York where he hacks into a national radio broadcast to deliver a three hour speech that explains the novel s theme and Rand s Objectivism 7 The authorities capture Galt unsuccessfully attempt to persuade him to lead the restoration of the country s economy and torture him when he refuses The government collapses and the novel closes as Galt announces that the strikers can rejoin the world History editContext and writing edit nbsp Ayn Rand in 1943Rand s stated goal for writing the novel was to show how desperately the world needs prime movers and how viciously it treats them and to portray what happens to the world without them 8 The core idea for the book came to her during a 1943 telephone conversation with her friend Isabel Paterson who asserted that Rand owed it to her readers to write fiction about her philosophy Rand disagreed and replied What if I went on strike What if all the creative minds of the world went on strike That would make a good novel After the conversation ended Rand s husband Frank O Connor who had overheard affirmed to Rand That would make a good novel 9 Rand then began Atlas Shrugged to depict the morality of rational self interest 10 by exploring the consequences of a strike by intellectuals refusing to supply their inventions art business leadership scientific research or new ideas to the rest of the world 11 Rand began the first draft of the novel on September 2 1946 12 She initially thought it would be easy to write and completed quickly but as she considered the complexity of the philosophical issues she wanted to address she realized it would take longer 13 After ending a contract to write screenplays for Hal Wallis and finishing her obligations for the film adaptation of The Fountainhead Rand worked full time on the novel that she tentatively titled The Strike By the summer of 1950 she had written 18 chapters 14 by September 1951 she had written 21 chapters and was working on the last of the novel s three sections 15 As Rand completed new chapters she read them to a circle of young admirers who had begun gathering at her home to discuss philosophy This group included Nathaniel Branden his wife Barbara Branden Barbara s cousin Leonard Peikoff and economist Alan Greenspan 16 Progress on the novel slowed considerably in 1953 when Rand began working on Galt s lengthy radio address She spent more than two years completing the speech finishing it on October 13 1955 17 The remaining chapters proceeded more quickly and by November 1956 Rand was ready to submit the almost completed manuscript to publishers 18 Atlas Shrugged was Rand s last completed work of fiction It marked a turning point in her life the end of her career as a novelist and the beginning of her role as a popular philosopher 19 20 Influences edit nbsp Rand used interviews with scientist J Robert Oppenheimer for the character Robert Stadler Rand biographer Anne Heller traces some ideas that would go into Atlas Shrugged back to a never written novel that Rand outlined when she was a student at Petrograd State University The futuristic story featured an American heiress luring the most talented men away from a mostly communist Europe The heiress would have had an assistant called Eddie Willers the name of Dagny s assistant in Atlas Shrugged 21 To depict the industrial setting of Atlas Shrugged Rand conducted research on the American railroad and steel industries She toured and inspected a number of industrial facilities such as the Kaiser Steel plant 22 visited facilities of the New York Central Railroad 23 24 and briefly operated a locomotive on the Twentieth Century Limited 25 Rand also used her previous research for an uncompleted screenplay about the development of the atomic bomb including her interviews of J Robert Oppenheimer which influenced the character Robert Stadler and the novel s depiction of the development of Project X 26 Rand s descriptions of Galt s Gulch were based on the town of Ouray Colorado which Rand and her husband visited in 1951 when they were relocating from Los Angeles to New York 15 Other details of the novel were affected by the experiences and comments of her friends For example her portrayal of leftist intellectuals such as the characters Balph Eubank and Simon Pritchett was influenced by the college experiences of Nathaniel and Barbara Branden 27 and Alan Greenspan provided information on the economics of the steel industry 28 Libertarian writer Justin Raimondo described similarities between Atlas Shrugged and Garet Garrett s 1922 novel The Driver which is about an idealized industrialist named Henry Galt who is a transcontinental railway owner trying to improve the world and fighting against government and socialism 29 Raimondo believed the earlier novel influenced Rand s writing in ways she failed to acknowledge although there was no word for word plagiarism and The Driver was published four years before Rand emigrated to the United States 30 Journalist Jeff Walker echoed Raimondo s comparisons in his book The Ayn Rand Cult and listed The Driver as one of several unacknowledged precursors to Atlas Shrugged 31 In contrast Chris Matthew Sciabarra said he could not find any evidence to link Rand to Garrett 32 and considered Raimondo s claims to be unsupported 33 Liberty magazine editor R W Bradford said Raimondo made an unconvincing comparison based on a coincidence of names and common literary devices 34 Publishing history edit nbsp Random House CEO Bennett Cerf oversaw the novel s publication in 1957 Due to the success of Rand s 1943 novel The Fountainhead she had no trouble attracting a publisher for Atlas Shrugged This was a contrast to her previous novels which she had struggled to place Even before she began writing it she had been approached by publishers interested in her next novel However her contract for The Fountainhead gave the first option to its publisher Bobbs Merrill Company After reviewing a partial manuscript they asked her to discuss cuts and other changes She refused and Bobbs Merrill rejected the book 35 Hiram Hayden an editor she liked who had left Bobbs Merrill asked her to consider his new employer Random House In an early discussion about the difficulties of publishing a controversial novel Random House president Bennett Cerf proposed that Rand should submit the manuscript to multiple publishers simultaneously and ask how they would respond to its ideas so she could evaluate who might best promote her work Rand was impressed by the bold suggestion and by her overall conversations with them After speaking with a few other publishers from about a dozen who were interested Rand decided multiple submissions were not needed she offered the manuscript to Random House Upon reading the portion Rand submitted Cerf declared it a great book and offered Rand a contract It was the first time Rand had worked with a publisher whose executives seemed enthusiastic about one of her books 36 When the completed manuscript exceeded 600 000 words Cerf asked Rand to make cuts but backed off when she compared the idea to cutting the Bible 37 With 1168 pages in the first edition Atlas Shrugged is Rand s longest published book 38 Random House published the novel on October 10 1957 The initial print run was 100 000 copies The first paperback edition was published by New American Library in July 1959 with an initial run of 150 000 39 A 35th anniversary edition was published by E P Dutton in 1992 with an introduction by Rand s heir Leonard Peikoff 40 The novel has been translated into more than 30 languages a Title and chapters edit nbsp The title refers to the mythological Atlas The working title of the novel was The Strike but Rand thought this title would reveal the mystery element of the novel prematurely 42 She was pleased when her husband suggested Atlas Shrugged previously the title of a single chapter for the book 43 The title is a reference to Atlas a Titan in Greek mythology who is described in the novel as the giant who holds the world on his shoulders b The significance of this reference appears in a conversation in which Francisco d Anconia asks Rearden what advice he would give Atlas if the greater the Titan s effort the heavier the world bore down on his shoulders With Rearden unable to answer d Anconia gives his own advice To shrug 45 The novel is divided into three parts consisting of ten chapters each Each part is named in honor of one of Aristotle s laws of logic Non Contradiction after the law of noncontradiction Either Or which is a reference to the law of excluded middle and A Is A in reference to the law of identity 46 Each chapter also has a title Atlas Shrugged is the only one of Rand s novels to use chapter titles 47 Themes editPhilosophy edit Main article Objectivism The story of Atlas Shrugged dramatically expresses Rand s ethical egoism her advocacy of rational selfishness whereby all of the principal virtues and vices are applications of the role of reason as man s basic tool of survival or a failure to apply it rationality honesty justice independence integrity productiveness and pride Rand s characters often personify her view of the archetypes of various schools of philosophy for living and working in the world Robert James Bidinotto wrote Rand rejected the literary convention that depth and plausibility demand characters who are naturalistic replicas of the kinds of people we meet in everyday life uttering everyday dialogue and pursuing everyday values But she also rejected the notion that characters should be symbolic rather than realistic 48 and Rand herself stated My characters are never symbols they are merely men in sharper focus than the audience can see with unaided sight My characters are persons in whom certain human attributes are focused more sharply and consistently than in average human beings 48 In addition to the plot s more obvious statements about the significance of industrialists to society and the sharp contrast to Marxism and the labor theory of value this explicit conflict is used by Rand to draw wider philosophical conclusions both implicit in the plot and via the characters own statements Atlas Shrugged caricatures fascism socialism communism and any state intervention in society as allowing unproductive people to leech the hard earned wealth of the productive and Rand contends that the outcome of any individual s life is purely a function of their ability and that any individual could overcome adverse circumstances given ability and intelligence 49 Sanction of the victim edit The concept sanction of the victim is defined by Leonard Peikoff as the willingness of the good to suffer at the hands of the evil to accept the role of sacrificial victim for the sin of creating value 50 Accordingly throughout Atlas Shrugged numerous characters are frustrated by this sanction as when Hank Rearden appears duty bound to support his family despite their hostility toward him later the principle is stated by Dan Conway I suppose somebody s got to be sacrificed If it turned out to be me I have no right to complain John Galt further explains the principle Evil is impotent and has no power but that which we let it extort from us and I saw that evil was impotent and the only weapon of its triumph was the willingness of the good to serve it 51 Government and business edit Rand s view of the ideal government is expressed by John Galt The political system we will build is contained in a single moral premise no man may obtain any values from others by resorting to physical force whereas no rights can exist without the right to translate one s rights into reality to think to work and to keep the results which means the right of property 52 Galt himself lives a life of laissez faire capitalism 53 In the world of Atlas Shrugged society stagnates when independent productive agencies are socially demonized for their accomplishments This is in agreement with an excerpt from a 1964 interview with Playboy magazine in which Rand states The action in Atlas Shrugged takes place at a time when society has reached the stage of dictatorship 54 Rand also depicts public choice theory such that the language of altruism is used to pass legislation nominally in the public interest e g the Anti Dog Eat Dog Rule and The Equalization of Opportunity Bill but more to the short term benefit of special interests and government agencies 55 Property rights and individualism edit Rand s heroes continually oppose parasites looters and moochers who demand the benefits of the heroes labor Edward Younkins describes Atlas Shrugged as an apocalyptic vision of the last stages of conflict between two classes of humanity the looters and the non looters The looters are proponents of high taxation big labor government ownership government spending government planning regulation and redistribution 56 Looters are Rand s depiction of bureaucrats and government officials who confiscate others earnings by the implicit threat of force at the point of a gun Some officials execute government policy such as those who confiscate one state s seed grain to feed the starving citizens of another others exploit those policies such as the railroad regulator who illegally sells the railroad s supplies for his own profit Both use force to take property from the people who produced or earned it Moochers are Rand s depiction of those unable to produce value themselves who demand others earnings on behalf of the needy but resent the talented upon whom they depend and appeal to moral right while enabling the lawful seizure by governments The character Francisco d Anconia indicates the role of looters and moochers in relation to money So you think that money is the root of all evil Have you ever asked what is the root of money Money is a tool of exchange which can t exist unless there are goods produced and men able to produce them Money is not the tool of the moochers who claim your product by tears or the looters who take it from you by force Money is made possible only by the men who produce 57 Genre editThe novel includes elements of mystery romance and science fiction 58 59 Rand referred to Atlas Shrugged as a mystery novel not about the murder of man s body but about the murder and rebirth of man s spirit 60 Nonetheless when asked by film producer Albert S Ruddy if a screenplay could focus on the love story Rand agreed and reportedly said That s all it ever was 59 Technological progress and intellectual breakthroughs in scientific theory appear in Atlas Shrugged leading some observers to classify it in the genre of science fiction 61 Fictional inventions such as Galt s motor Rearden Metal and Project X a sonic weapon are important to the plot 62 Science fiction historian John J Pierce describes it as a romantic suspense novel that is at least a borderline case of science fiction 63 specifically libertarian science fiction based on its political themes 64 The novel s focus on philosophical issues including ethics and metaphysics marks it as a philosophical novel 65 66 Reception editSales edit nbsp Rand in 1957Atlas Shrugged debuted at number 13 on The New York Times Best Seller list three days after its publication It peaked at number 3 on December 8 1957 and was on the list for 22 consecutive weeks 67 By 1984 its sales had exceeded five million copies 68 Sales of Atlas Shrugged increased following the financial crisis of 2007 2008 The novel s sales in 2009 exceeded 500 000 copies 69 and it sold 445 000 copies in 2011 70 As of 2022 the novel had sold 10 million copies 71 Contemporary reviews edit Atlas Shrugged was generally disliked by critics Rand scholar Mimi Reisel Gladstein later wrote that reviewers seemed to vie with each other in a contest to devise the cleverest put downs one called it execrable claptrap while another said it showed remorseless hectoring and prolixity 72 In the Saturday Review Helen Beal Woodward said that the novel was written with dazzling virtuosity but was shot through with hatred 73 In The New York Times Book Review Granville Hicks similarly said the book was written out of hate 74 The reviewer for Time magazine asked Is it a novel Is it a nightmare Is it Superman in the comic strip or the Nietzschean version 75 Whittaker Chambers wrote what was later called the novel s most notorious review 76 77 for the conservative magazine National Review where he called it remarkably silly 78 and said it can be called a novel only by devaluing the term 79 He predicted that practicing Rand s godless ideology would lead to a dictatorship similar to Nazism or Stalinist Communism and said that within the novel a voice can be heard commanding To a gas chamber go 80 There were some positive reviews Richard McLaughlin reviewing the novel for The American Mercury described it as a long overdue polemic against the welfare state with an exciting suspenseful plot although unnecessarily long He drew a comparison with the antislavery novel Uncle Tom s Cabin saying that a skillful polemicist did not need a refined literary style to have a political impact 81 Journalist and book reviewer John Chamberlain writing in the New York Herald Tribune found Atlas Shrugged satisfying on many levels as science fiction as a philosophical detective story and as a profound political parable 82 Influence and legacy edit nbsp nbsp nbsp nbsp Notable figures who have expressed admiration for Atlas Shrugged include clockwise from upper left Austrian American economist Ludwig von Mises American commentator Glenn Beck Israeli politician Ayelet Shaked and Associate US Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas Atlas Shrugged has attracted an energetic and committed fan base Each year the Ayn Rand Institute donates 400 000 copies of works by Rand including Atlas Shrugged to high school students 60 According to a 1991 survey done for the Library of Congress and the Book of the Month Club Atlas Shrugged was ranked second among the books that made the most difference in the lives of 17 out of 2 032 Book of the Month club members who responded between the Bible and M Scott Peck s The Road Less Traveled 83 84 Modern Library s 1998 nonscientific online poll of the 100 best novels of the 20th century found Atlas rated No 1 although it was not included on the list chosen by the Modern Library board of authors and scholars 85 86 The 2018 PBS Great American Read television series found Atlas Shrugged rated number 20 out of 100 novels 87 based on a YouGov survey asking Americans to name their most loved novel 88 Rand s impact on contemporary libertarian thought has been considerable The title of one libertarian magazine Reason Free Minds Free Markets is taken from John Galt the hero of Atlas Shrugged who argues that a free mind and a free market are corollaries In a tribute written on the 20th anniversary of the novel s publication libertarian philosopher John Hospers praised it as a supreme achievement guaranteed of immortality 89 In 1997 the libertarian Cato Institute held a joint conference with The Atlas Society an Objectivist organization to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the publication of Atlas Shrugged 90 At this event Howard Dickman of Reader s Digest stated that the novel had turned millions of readers on to the ideas of liberty and said that the book had the important message of the readers profound right to be happy 90 Rand s former business partner and lover Nathaniel Branden expressed differing views of Atlas Shrugged He was initially quite favorable to it and even after he and Rand ended their relationship he still referred to it in an interview as the greatest novel that has ever been written although he found a few things one can quarrel with in the book 91 However in 1984 he argued that Atlas Shrugged encourages emotional repression and self disowning and that Rand s works contained contradictory messages He criticized the potential psychological impact of the novel stating that Galt s recommendation to respond to wrongdoing with contempt and moral condemnation clashes with the view of psychologists who say this only causes the wrongdoing to repeat itself 92 The Austrian School economist Ludwig von Mises admired the unapologetic elitism he saw in Rand s work In a letter to Rand written a few months after the novel s publication he said it offered a cogent analysis of the evils that plague our society a substantiated rejection of the ideology of our self styled intellectuals and a pitiless unmasking of the insincerity of the policies adopted by governments and political parties You have the courage to tell the masses what no politician told them you are inferior and all the improvements in your conditions which you simply take for granted you owe to the efforts of men who are better than you 93 Murray Rothbard another Austrian School economist wrote a letter to Rand in 1958 in which he praised the book as an infinite treasure house and not merely the greatest novel ever written but one of the very greatest books ever written fiction or nonfiction 94 Rothbard soon distanced himself from Rand due to various disagreements in philosophy and in the early 1960s he wrote a satirical one act play titled Mozart Was a Red that spoofed Rand as the character Carson Sand and the novel as Sand s book The Brow of Zeus 95 In the years immediately following the novel s publication many American conservatives such as William F Buckley Jr strongly disapproved of Rand and her Objectivist message In addition to the strongly critical review by Whittaker Chambers Buckley published a number of critical pieces Russell Kirk called Objectivism an inverted religion Frank Meyer accused Rand of calculated cruelties and called her message an arid subhuman image of man and Garry Wills regarded Rand a fanatic 96 nbsp A protester s sign at a 2009 Tea Party rally refers to the character John Galt In the 21st century the novel was referred to more positively by some conservatives In 2005 Republican Congressman Paul Ryan said that Rand was the reason I got into public service and he required his staff members to read Atlas Shrugged 97 although in 2012 he said his supposed devotion to Rand was an urban legend 98 In 2006 Clarence Thomas an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States cited Atlas Shrugged as among his favorite novels 99 Following the financial crisis of 2007 2008 conservative commentators suggested the book as a warning against a socialistic reaction to the crisis Conservative commentators Neal Boortz 100 Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh 101 offered praise of the book on their respective radio and television programs In January 2009 conservative writer Stephen Moore wrote an article in The Wall Street Journal titled Atlas Shrugged From Fiction to Fact in 52 Years 102 and two months later Republican Congressman John Campbell said People are starting to feel like we re living through the scenario that happened in Atlas Shrugged 103 Outside of the US the novel has been cited as an influence by politicians such as Siv Jensen in Norway 104 and Ayelet Shaked in Israel 105 References to Atlas Shrugged have appeared in a variety of other popular entertainments In the first season of the drama series Mad Men Bert Cooper urges Don Draper to read the book and Don s sales pitch tactic to a client indicates he has been influenced by the strike plot 106 Less positive mentions of the novel occur in episodes of the animated comedies Futurama where it appears among the library of books flushed down to the sewers to be read only by grotesque mutants and South Park where a newly literate character gives up on reading after experiencing Atlas Shrugged 107 The critically acclaimed 2007 video game BioShock is widely considered to be a response to Atlas Shrugged The story depicts a society that has collapsed due to Objectivism and significant characters in the game owe their naming to Rand s work which the game s creator Ken Levine found really fascinating 108 In 2013 it was announced that Galt s Gulch a settlement for libertarian devotees named for John Galt s safe haven would be established near Santiago in Chile 109 but the project collapsed amid accusations of fraud 110 Awards edit Atlas Shrugged was a finalist for the US National Book Award for Fiction in 1958 but lost to The Wapshot Chronicle by John Cheever 111 In 1983 it was one of the first two books given the Prometheus Awards Hall of Fame Award for libertarian science fiction alongside The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress by Robert Heinlein 112 Adaptations editFilm edit Early attempts edit nbsp John Aglialoro optioned the film rights in 1992 A film adaptation of Atlas Shrugged was in development hell for nearly 40 years 113 In 1972 Albert S Ruddy approached Rand to produce a cinematic adaptation Rand insisted on having final script approval which Ruddy refused to give her thus preventing a deal In 1978 Henry and Michael Jaffe negotiated a deal for an eight hour Atlas Shrugged television miniseries on NBC Screenwriter Stirling Silliphant wrote the adaptation and obtained approval from Rand on the final script When Fred Silverman became president of NBC in 1979 the project was scrapped 114 Rand a former Hollywood screenwriter herself began writing her own screenplay but died in 1982 with only one third of it finished Her heir Leonard Peikoff sold an option to Michael Jaffe and Ed Snider Peikoff would not approve the script they wrote and the deal fell through In 1992 investor John Aglialoro paid Peikoff over 1 million for an option with full creative control 114 Two new scripts one by screenwriter Benedict Fitzgerald and another by Peikoff s wife Cynthia Peikoff were deemed inadequate and Aglialoro refunded early investors in the project 115 In 1999 under Aglialoro s sponsorship Ruddy negotiated a deal with Turner Network Television TNT for a four hour miniseries but the project was killed after TNT merged with AOL Time Warner After the TNT deal fell through Howard and Karen Baldwin obtained the rights while running Philip Anschutz s Crusader Entertainment The Baldwins left Crusader to form Baldwin Entertainment Group in 2004 and took the rights to Atlas Shrugged with them Michael Burns of Lions Gate Entertainment approached the Baldwins to fund and distribute Atlas Shrugged 114 A draft screenplay was written by James V Hart 116 and rewritten by Randall Wallace 117 but was never produced 2011 2014 trilogy edit Main article Atlas Shrugged film series Atlas Shrugged was made into a film trilogy released between 2011 and 2014 Atlas Shrugged Part I edit Main article Atlas Shrugged Part I nbsp Taylor Schilling played Dagny Taggart in Atlas Shrugged Part I In May 2010 Brian Patrick O Toole and Aglialoro wrote a screenplay intent on filming in June 2010 Stephen Polk was set to direct 118 However Polk was fired and principal photography began on June 13 2010 under the direction of Paul Johansson and produced by Harmon Kaslow and Aglialoro 119 This resulted in Aglialoro s retention of his rights to the property which were set to expire on June 15 2010 Filming was completed on July 20 2010 120 and the movie was released on April 15 2011 121 Taylor Schilling played Dagny Taggart and Grant Bowler played Hank Rearden 122 The film was met with a generally negative reception from professional critics Review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes gives the film a score of 12 based on 52 reviews with an average score of 3 8 out of 10 123 The film had under 5 million in total box office receipts 121 considerably less than the estimated 20 million invested by Aglialoro and others 124 The poor box office and critical reception made Aglialoro reconsider his plans for the rest of the trilogy 125 but other investors convinced him to continue 126 Atlas Shrugged Part II edit Main article Atlas Shrugged Part II On February 2 2012 Kaslow and Aglialoro announced they had raised 16 million to fund Atlas Shrugged Part II 127 Principal photography began on April 2 2012 128 the producers hoped to release the film before the US presidential election in November 129 Because the cast for the first film had not been contracted for the entire trilogy different actors were cast for all the roles 130 Samantha Mathis played Dagny with Jason Beghe as Hank and Esai Morales as Francisco d Anconia 131 The film was released on October 12 2012 without a special screening for critics 132 It earned 1 7 million on 1012 screens for the opening weekend which at that time ranked as the 109th worst opening for a film in wide release 133 Critical response was highly negative Rotten Tomatoes gives the film a 4 rating based on 23 reviews with an average score of 3 2 out of 10 134 The film s final box office total was 3 3 million 133 Atlas Shrugged Part III Who Is John Galt edit Main article Atlas Shrugged Part III Who Is John Galt The third part in the series Atlas Shrugged Part III Who Is John Galt was released on September 12 2014 135 Dagny was played by Laura Regan with Rob Morrow as Hank Kristoffer Polaha as John Galt and Joaquim de Almeida as Francisco The movie opened on 242 screens and grossed 461 179 on its opening weekend the final box office total was 851 690 136 It was reviewed unfavorably by critics holding a 0 at Rotten Tomatoes based on 10 reviews with an average score of 1 8 out of 10 137 Future edit In 2015 The New York Times reported that Ruddy had come to an agreement with Aglialoro to make a new television adaptation of Atlas Shrugged 138 On November 17 2022 producer Jeremy Boreing announced that conservative media company The Daily Wire optioned the rights to Atlas Shrugged The company plans to create a series based on the novel for the DailyWire video on demand service in cooperation with the Bonfire Legend movie studio and Aglialoro s Atlas Distribution Company 139 Stage edit Atlas Shrugged has been adapted twice as stage plays in German In 2013 Stefan Bachmann de sv director of the Schauspiel Koln in Cologne staged Der Streik The Strike a four hour adaptation co written by Bachmann and Jens Gross de Bachmann had begun the adaptation eight years earlier but the theaters he worked for prior to Schauspiel Koln were dismissive of the idea 140 In January 2021 director Nicolas Stemann presented a three hour musical adaptation also titled Der Streik in Zurich Switzerland Stemann s version of the story from the novel is presented as a story within a story being staged by a Church of Ayn Rand that is associated with the alt right and white supremacy 141 See also edit nbsp Novels portalObjectivism and libertarianismNotes edit According to the Ayn Rand Institute Atlas Shrugged has been translated into Albanian Bulgarian Chinese Czech Danish Dutch Finnish French Georgian German Greek Hebrew Hungarian Icelandic Italian Japanese Kazakh Korean Marathi Mongolian Norwegian Polish Portuguese Romanian Russian Serbian Slovak Spanish Swedish Turkish and Ukrainian 39 41 In ancient myths Atlas supported the sky not the earth Artistic depictions of Atlas holding a sphere representing the sky led to a later misconception that he held the earth 44 References edit Rand 1997 p 704 a b Younkins Edward W Atlas Shrugged Ayn Rand s Philosophical and Literary Masterpiece In Younkins 2007 pp 9 10 Hunt 1983 p 85 Hunt 1983 p 86 Hunt 1983 p 82 Rand 1995 p 23 Stolyarov II G The Role and Essence of John Galt s Speech in Ayn Rand s Atlas Shrugged In Younkins 2007 p 99 Rand 1997 p 392 Heller 2009 p 165 italics original to source Rand 1986 p 150 Branden 1986 p 53 Heller 2009 p 201 Heller 2009 p 202 Heller 2009 p 229 a b Heller 2009 p 235 Heller 2009 pp 240 243 Heller 2009 pp 260 268 Heller 2009 p 271 Younkins 2007 p 1 Gladstein 2000 p 28 Heller 2009 pp 48 49 Burns 2009 p 126 Heller 2009 p 206 Burns 2009 p 125 Heller 2009 p 212 Burns 2009 p 107 Heller 2009 p 225 Heller 2009 p 242 Raimondo 2008 pp 237 241 Raimondo 2008 p 243 Walker 1999 pp 305 307 Sciabarra 2013 p 419 Sciabarra 1999 p 11 Bradford 1994 pp 57 58 Ralston Richard E Publishing Atlas Shrugged In Mayhew 2009 pp 123 124 Ralston Richard E Publishing Atlas Shrugged In Mayhew 2009 pp 124 127 Heller 2009 p 279 Lipp Ronald F Atlas and Art In Younkins 2007 p 143 a b Ralston Richard E Publishing Atlas Shrugged In Mayhew 2009 p 130 Gladstein 1999 p 129 Foreign Editions PDF Ayn Rand Institute December 10 2021 Archived PDF from the original on February 3 2022 Retrieved March 23 2023 Branden 1986 p 291 Burns 2009 p 149 Hansen 2004 p 127 Minsaas Kirsti Ayn Rand s Recasting of Ancient Myths in Atlas Shrugged In Younkins 2007 pp 131 132 Younkins Edward W Atlas Shrugged Ayn Rand s Philosophical and Literary Masterpiece In Younkins 2007 p 15 Seddon Fred Various Levels of Meaning in the Chapter Titles of Atlas Shrugged In Younkins 2007 p 47 a b Bidinotto 2011 Peikoff Leonard Introduction to the 35th Anniversary Edition In Rand 1992 pp 6 8 Leonard Peikoff The Philosophy of Objectivism lecture series 1976 Lecture 8 1 Rand 1992 p 1048 Rand 1992 p 1062 Gladstein 1999 p 54 Ayn Rand interviewed by Alvin Toffler Playboy Magazine discoveraynrand com 1964 Archived from the original on March 12 2009 Retrieved April 12 2009 Caplan Bryan Atlas Shrugged and Public Choice The Obvious Parallels In Younkins 2007 pp 215 224 Younkins Edward W Atlas Shrugged Ayn Rand s Philosophical and Literary Masterpiece In Younkins 2007 p 10 Rand 1992 pp 410 413 Gladstein 1999 p 42 a b McConnell 2010 p 507 a b Rubin 2007 Hunt 1983 pp 80 98 Riggenbach Jeff Atlas Shrugged as a Science Fiction Novel In Younkins 2007 p 124 Pierce 1989 pp 158 159 Pierce 1989 p 163 Gotthelf Alan Galt s Speech in Five Sentences and Forty Questions In Mayhew 2009 p 394n6 Salmieri Gregory Discovering Atlantis Atlas Shrugged s Demonstration of a New Moral Philosophy In Mayhew 2009 p 401 History of Atlas Shrugged Ayn Rand Institute Archived from the original on February 10 2014 Retrieved April 18 2012 Branden 1986 p 299 Atlas Shrugged Sets a New Record Ayn Rand Institute January 21 2010 Archived from the original on November 26 2011 Retrieved January 12 2009 Atlas Shrugged Still Flying Off Shelves Ayn Rand Institute February 14 2012 Archived from the original on July 7 2022 Retrieved January 1 2015 Offord 2022 p 12 Gladstein 1999 p 118 Woodward 1957 p 25 Hicks 1957 p 5 Solid Gold Dollar Sign Time October 14 1957 p 128 Burns 2009 p 174 Doherty 2007 p 659 n4 Chambers 1957 p 594 Chambers 1957 p 595 Chambers 1957 p 596 McLaughlin 1958 pp 144 146 Chamberlain John October 6 1957 Ayn Rand s Political Parable and Thundering Melodrama The New York Herald Tribune p 6 1 Fein Esther B November 20 1991 Book Notes The New York Times ISSN 0362 4331 Retrieved December 11 2022 Bible Ranks 1 of Books That Changed Lives Los Angeles Times December 2 1991 Freund Charles Paul October 1998 Netbrow Reason p 17 100 Best Novels Random House Archived from the original on February 3 2011 Retrieved February 1 2011 The Great American Read Results PBS Archived from the original on June 6 2021 Retrieved July 1 2021 The Great American Read About PBS Archived from the original on May 8 2021 Retrieved July 1 2021 Hospers John October 1977 Atlas Shrugged A Twentieth Anniversary Tribute Libertarian Review 6 6 41 43 a b Hundreds Gather to Celebrate Atlas Shrugged Cato Policy Report November December 1997 Archived from the original on April 20 2009 Retrieved April 14 2009 Break Free An Interview with Nathaniel Branden PDF Reason October 1971 p 17 Branden 1984 von Mises Ludwig Letter dated January 23 1958 Quoted in Hulsmann Jorg Guido 2007 Mises The Last Knight of Liberalism Auburn Alabama The Ludwig von Mises Institute p 996 ISBN 978 1 933550 18 3 Burns 2009 pp 145 182 Sciabarra 2000 p 165 Nash 2006 pp 157 159 Beam 2010 Costa 2012 Thomas 2007 pp 62 187 How About A Mini Atlas Shrugged Nealz Nuze On Boortz com December 18 2008 Archived from the original on February 5 2010 Retrieved September 12 2009 Brook Yaron March 15 2009 Is Rand Relevant Wall Street Journal Moore Stephen January 9 2009 Atlas Shrugged From Fiction to Fact in 52 Years The Wall Street Journal Archived from the original on January 4 2015 Retrieved January 14 2014 Barnes 2009 Wang naveen 2016 Zeveloff 2015 White 2010 pp 79 94 Sciabarra 2004 Perry 2006 Bodzin Steven March 2014 Libertarians Plan to Sit Out the Coming Collapse of America in Chile Mother Jones Archived from the original on February 14 2022 Hutchinson Brian September 26 2014 Freedom and Liberty Not Enough to Save Galt s Gulch Chile Libertarian Community from Bureaucracy and Internal Dissent National Post Archived from the original on March 23 2023 Atlas Shrugged National Book Foundation Archived from the original on February 25 2021 Retrieved June 28 2021 Prometheus Awards Libertarian Futurist Society Archived from the original on May 22 2021 Retrieved June 28 2021 Britting Jeff Bringing Atlas Shrugged to Film In Mayhew 2009 p 195 a b c Brown 2007 Carter 2014 pp 75 77 McClintock 2006 Fleming 2007 Fleming Mike May 26 2010 Atlas Shrugged Rights Holder Sets June Production Start Whether Or Not Stars Align Deadline com Archived from the original on May 29 2010 Retrieved May 28 2010 Murty Govindini July 21 2010 Exclusive LFM Visits the Set of Atlas Shrugged Director Paul Johansson s First Interview About the Film Libertas Film Magazine Archived from the original on August 1 2010 Retrieved August 26 2010 Kay Jeremy July 26 2010 Production Wraps on Atlas Shrugged Part One Screen Daily Archived from the original on July 30 2010 Retrieved July 29 2010 a b Carter 2014 p 89 Carter 2014 p 85 Atlas Shrugged Part I Rotten Tomatoes Flixster Retrieved June 21 2021 Weigel 2011 Keegan 2011 Carter 2014 pp 90 91 Key 2012 DeSapio 2012 Carter 2014 p 91 Carter 2014 p 93 Carter 2014 p 92 Carter 2014 p 95 a b Knegt 2013 Atlas Shrugged Part II Rotten Tomatoes Retrieved June 21 2021 Bond Paul March 26 2014 Atlas Shrugged Who Is John Galt Sets Sept 12 Release Date Exclusive The Hollywood Reporter Retrieved September 21 2014 Atlas Shrugged Part III Who is John Galt The Numbers Retrieved June 21 2021 Atlas Shrugged Who is John Galt Rotten Tomatoes Retrieved June 21 2021 Cieply Michael November 2 2015 Film Producer Lands Rights to Atlas Shrugged Novel The New York Times Gale General OneFile p B8 L Albert S Ruddy whose credits include The Godfather plans to make a six to eight hour TV version of Atlas Shrugged Wiseman 2022 Bruhwiler 2021 pp 220 221 Bruhwiler 2021 pp 221 222 Works cited edit Barnes Anita March 4 2009 Congressman We re Living in Atlas Shrugged The Washington Independent Archived from the original on February 12 2021 Retrieved June 27 2021 Beam Christopher December 17 2010 The Trouble with Liberty New York Archived from the original on October 23 2020 Retrieved June 27 2021 Bidinotto Robert James April 5 2011 Atlas Shrugged as Literature The Atlas Society Archived from the original on March 8 2021 Retrieved October 10 2017 Bradford R W May 1994 Was Ayn Rand a Plagiarist PDF Liberty Vol 7 no 4 pp 56 58 Archived from the original PDF on August 18 2019 Retrieved June 10 2022 Branden Barbara 1986 The Passion of Ayn Rand Garden City New York Doubleday amp Company ISBN 978 0 385 19171 5 Branden Nathaniel Fall 1984 The Benefits and Hazards of the Philosophy of Ayn Rand A Personal Statement Journal of Humanistic Psychology 24 4 29 64 doi 10 1177 0022167884244004 S2CID 144772216 Brown Kimberly January 14 2007 Ayn Rand No Longer Has Script Approval New York Times Retrieved June 21 2009 Bruhwiler Claudia Franziska 2021 Out of a Gray Fog Ayn Rand s Europe Kindle ed Lanham Maryland Lexington Books ISBN 978 1 79363 686 7 Burns Jennifer 2009 Goddess of the Market Ayn Rand and the American Right New York Oxford University Press ISBN 978 0 19 532487 7 Carter Joan 2014 The History of the Atlas Shrugged Movie Trilogy In Kelley David ed Atlas Shrugged The Novel the Films the Philosophy The Atlas Society ISBN 978 1 5010 5924 7 Chambers Whittaker December 8 1957 Big Sister is Watching You National Review pp 594 596 Cocks Neil ed 2020 Questioning Ayn Rand Subjectivity Political Economy and the Arts Palgrave Studies in Literature Culture and Economics Kindle ed Cham Switzerland Palgrave Macmillan ISBN 978 3 030 53072 3 Costa Robert April 26 2012 Ryan Shrugged Representative Paul Ryan Debunks an Urban Legend National Review Archived from the original on October 29 2013 Retrieved June 6 2013 DeSapio Scott April 2 2012 Atlas Shrugged Part 2 Begins Principal Photography Atlas Shrugged Movie Atlas Productions Retrieved August 17 2019 Doherty Brian 2007 Radicals for Capitalism A Freewheeling History of the Modern American Libertarian Movement New York Public Affairs Press ISBN 978 1 58648 350 0 Fleming Michael September 4 2007 Vadim Perelman to Direct Atlas Variety Retrieved June 21 2009 Gladstein Mimi Reisel 1999 The New Ayn Rand Companion Westport Connecticut Greenwood Press ISBN 978 0 313 30321 0 Gladstein Mimi Reisel 2000 Atlas Shrugged Manifesto of the Mind Twayne s Masterwork Studies series New York Twayne Publishers ISBN 978 0 8057 1638 2 Hansen William 2004 Handbook of Classical Mythology Santa Barbara California ABC CLIO ISBN 978 1 57607 226 4 Heller Anne C 2009 Ayn Rand and the World She Made New York Doubleday ISBN 978 0 385 51399 9 Hicks Granville October 13 1957 A Parable of Buried Talents The New York Times Book Review pp 4 5 Hunt Robert 1983 Science Fiction for the Age of Inflation Reading Atlas Shrugged in the 1980s In Slusser George E Rabkin Eric S amp Scholes Robert eds Coordinates Placing Science Fiction and Fantasy Carbondale Illinois Southern Illinois University Press pp 80 98 ISBN 978 0 8093 1105 7 Keegan Rebecca April 26 2011 Atlas Shrugged Producer Critics You Won He s Going On Strike Los Angeles Times Retrieved August 15 2019 Knegt Peter January 4 2013 The 5 Biggest Disappointments at the 2012 Specialty Box Office IndieWire Retrieved August 17 2019 Key Peter February 6 2012 Atlas Shrugged Part 2 Movie Funded Philadelphia Business Journal Retrieved August 17 2019 Mayhew Robert ed 2009 Essays on Ayn Rand s Atlas Shrugged Lanham Maryland Lexington Books ISBN 978 0 7391 2780 3 McClintock Pamela April 26 2006 Lionsgate Shrugging Variety Archived from the original on April 29 2009 Retrieved June 12 2009 McConnell Scott 2010 100 Voices An Oral History of Ayn Rand New York New American Library ISBN 978 0 451 23130 7 McLaughlin Richard January 1958 The Lady Has a Message The American Mercury pp 144 146 Nash George H 2006 The Conservative Intellectual Movement in America Since 1945 30th anniversary ed Wilmington Delaware ISI Books ISBN 978 1 933859 12 5 Offord Derek 2022 Ayn Rand and the Russian Intelligentsia The Origins of an Icon of the American Right Russian Shorts Kindle ed London Bloomsbury Academic ISBN 978 1 3502 8393 0 Pierce John J 1989 When World Views Collide A Study in Imagination and Evolution New York Greenwood Press ISBN 978 0 313 25457 4 Perry Douglass C May 26 2006 The Influence of Literature and Myth in Videogames IGN Archived from the original on February 24 2021 Retrieved October 7 2007 Raimondo Justin 2008 1993 Reclaiming the American Right The Lost Legacy of the Conservative Movement Wilmington Delaware ISI Books ISBN 978 1 933859 60 6 Rand Ayn 1986 1966 Capitalism The Unknown Ideal Signet ISBN 978 0 451 14795 0 Rand Ayn 1992 1957 Atlas Shrugged 35th anniversary ed New York Dutton ISBN 978 0 525 94892 6 Rand Ayn 1997 Harriman David ed Journals of Ayn Rand New York Dutton ISBN 978 0 525 94370 9 Rand Ayn 1995 Berliner Michael S ed Letters of Ayn Rand New York Dutton ISBN 0 525 93946 6 OCLC 31412028 Rubin Harriet September 15 2007 Ayn Rand s Literature of Capitalism The New York Times Archived from the original on May 12 2011 Retrieved April 15 2011 Sciabarra Chris Matthew March April 1999 Books for Rand Studies Full Context 11 4 9 11 Archived from the original on October 26 2020 Sciabarra Chris Matthew 2000 Total Freedom Toward a Dialectical Libertarianism University Park Pennsylvania Pennsylvania State University Press p 165 ISBN 978 0 271 01830 0 Sciabarra Chris Matthew Fall 2004 The Illustrated Rand PDF The Journal of Ayn Rand Studies 6 1 1 20 JSTOR 41560268 Archived PDF from the original on June 26 2021 Retrieved April 15 2011 Sciabarra Chris Matthew 2013 Ayn Rand The Russian Radical 2nd ed University Park Pennsylvania Pennsylvania State University Press ISBN 978 0 271 06227 3 Thomas Clarence 2007 My Grandfather s Son A Memoir New York Harper Perennial ISBN 978 0 06 056556 5 Walker Jeff 1999 The Ayn Rand Cult La Salle Illinois Open Court Publishing ISBN 0 8126 9390 6 Wang naveen Mala January 5 2016 Er Ayn Rand en politikkens Darth Vader eller en glitrende ledestjerne Is Ayn Rand a Darth Vader of Politics or a Sparkling Guiding Star Aftenposten in Norwegian Archived from the original on February 22 2021 Retrieved June 14 2021 Weigel David March 3 2011 Libertarians Shrugged Slate Retrieved August 15 2019 White Robert 2010 Endless Egoists The Second Hand Lives of Mad Men In Carveth Rod South James B eds Mad Men and Philosophy Nothing Is as It Seems Hoboken New Jersey John Wiley amp Sons ISBN 978 0 470 60301 7 Wiseman Andreas November 17 2022 The Daily Wire Lines Up Series Adaptation Of Ayn Rand s Dystopian Novel Atlas Shrugged Deadline Archived from the original on November 17 2022 Retrieved November 18 2022 Woodward Helen Beal October 12 1957 Non Stop Daydream Saturday Review p 25 Younkins Edward W ed 2007 Ayn Rand s Atlas Shrugged A Philosophical and Literary Companion Burlington Vermont Ashgate Publishing ISBN 978 0 7546 5533 6 Zeveloff Naomi January 26 2015 Can Ayelet Shaked Sell Secular Israel on the Far Right The Forward Archived from the original on June 3 2015 Retrieved June 28 2021 Further reading editBranden Nathaniel 1962 The Moral Revolution in Atlas Shrugged Who is Ayn Rand Book co authored with Barbara Branden New York Random House pp 3 65 OCLC 313377536 Reprinted by The Objectivist Center as a booklet in 1999 ISBN 1 57724 033 2 Michalson Karen 1999 Who Is Dagny Taggart The Epic Hero ine in Disguise In Gladstein Mimi Reisel amp Sciabarra Chris Matthew eds Feminist Interpretations of Ayn Rand Re reading the Canon University Park Pennsylvania The Pennsylvania State University Press ISBN 978 0 534 57625 7 Wilt Judith 1999 On Atlas Shrugged In Gladstein Mimi Reisel amp Sciabarra Chris Matthew eds Feminist Interpretations of Ayn Rand Re reading the Canon University Park Pennsylvania The Pennsylvania State University Press ISBN 978 0 534 57625 7 External links edit nbsp Wikibooks has a book on the topic of Atlas Shrugged nbsp Wikiquote has quotations related to Atlas Shrugged Atlas Shrugged Centennial Edition at Google Books Atlas Shrugged on Goodreads Free Online CliffsNotes for Atlas Shrugged Page about Atlas Shrugged from the Ayn Rand Institute Timeline of major events in the novel Atlas Shrugged Essay Contest Archived June 26 2021 at the Wayback Machine Atlas Shrugged study guide themes quotes literary devices teaching resources Retrieved from https en wikipedia org w index php title Atlas Shrugged amp oldid 1206748932, wikipedia, wiki, book, books, library,

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