Customer Reviews:
Showing reviews 1-5 of 1954
 Amazing Book- Worth reading November 24, 2009
C. Peguero (New York, NY)
Many other people have written detail analysis and opinions of this book. I will brief by comparison. Simply read this book, it is worth your time and worthy of thoughtful analysis.
The story is fiction, but by many accounts you want to believe the characters are real. Rand writes from an idealized point of view where heroes hold on to their beliefs and the villians eventually crumble. Many have discussed the pro-capitalist view point of the book, but there is a more important fundamental that is a string of continuity from start to finish and that is the importance of thinking. The act of engaging in actual analytical thought, questioning the status quo and standing up against anyone who endorses simply following the herd.
 Bring your cheaters November 24, 2009
R. J. Voss (St. John, IN)
Small form factor of this book makes it compact and easy to bring along on a trip. 1300+ pages and a small form factor means us old guys need our cheaters to comfortably read the tiny font ...
More relevant than ever November 23, 2009
Bernhard Wolf (Plainview, TX USA)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Half a century after first publication, this book is more relevant than ever. It can be said that we are now living through the times described in this work. It surely is a must read for anyone who values individual liberty.
What happens when Atlas shrugs? November 22, 2009
Adam Freeman (fargo, nd)
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
This book will tell you what happens.
I started reading this because I was inspired by some of Rand's essays. I continued to read it because I was so excited by what she was writing. Never have I read a _novel_ with the kind of real world quality that this has. Not only does she keep everything realistic and believable, her language and ideas are very accessible.
In this book, Rand exposes so many of the things that rely on morality. Morality is like plumbing, we don't think about it until it's broken. What Rand is trying to do is show us that our plumbing (collectively) is broken.
As a whole, our moral code is not something that we consciously contemplate (well, not everyone), but we must. Following the plumbing analogy: Do you think about what you flush down the toilet? Pour down the kitchen sink drain? Why would it be any less important to ponder the results of choices in other aspects of our lives?
Writ large is what happens when we consciously decide to stop thinking about the "Why?", in regards to actions and motives. People live and die by the choices they make, and, as Rand illustrates, even more die by other people's choices. What's wrong with this picture? These people don't have to die! They're dying because the choices holding their lives in jeopardy are being relegated to the least competent people.
Rand may be labeled as "cold", "cruel", "vicious", and "in-human", but we would live in a truly dark world if that were the way we felt about all the people who give 100% with the expectation of a reward worth exactly as much, nothing more. Rand isn't telling us to revolt, she's telling us to demand what is rightfully ours: pride! Pride is the recognition that the products of your labor are valuable, that YOU are valuable. Anyone who tells you to work twice as hard so they can eat is taking food from your mouth. What Rand doesn't do is call this what it really is, slavery.
In the end, the biggest messages that Rand is sending is that selfishness IS NOT a crime, excellence IS NOT a crime, pride IS NOT a crime. The world relies on you, but the world doesn't care about you, YOU must. Rand doesn't hate the working class, she says that the greatest to be expected of anyone is for them to do the best that they can, nothing less will suffice, even if the best they can offer is their labor. BUT, only if you are furthering your own interests, anything else is coercion.
Needed now more than ever November 17, 2009
John Scott (Tokyo Japan)
0 out of 2 found this review helpful
The idea that Rand divides society in to "heroes" and "losers" is incorrect. The idea is that all individuals have the ability to command their own destiny. We are not victims unless we choose to be.
Showing reviews 1-5 of 1954
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