The role of the mind in man's existence

BOOK REVIEW BY RAJAT MITTAL

Atlas Shrugged ????.......

The name of the book comes to life at page 450 with the following passage, Mr. Reardon, said Francisco, his voice solemnly calm, if you saw Atlas, the giant who holds the world on his shoulders, if you saw that he stood, blood running down his chest, his knees buckling, his arms trembling but still trying to hold the world aloft with the last of his strength, and the greater his effort the heavier the world bore down upon his shoulders-what would you tell him to do? I dont know. Whatcould he do? What would you tell him? To shrug.

PLOT Stopping the motor of the world"

The plot involves a dystopian United States in which the most creative industrialists, scientists and artists go on strike and retreat to a mountainous hideaway where they build an independent free economy to illustrate that without the efforts of the rational and productive, the economy would collapse and society would fall apart.

OBJECTIVISM Celebration of individualism, free will, capitalism, logic, and reason

The willingness of the good to suffer at the hands of the evil. Sanction of the victim.
The essence of Objectivism is summarized by the oath her Atlas Shrugged character John Galt adhered to: I swear by my life and my love of it that I will never live for the sake of another man, nor ask another man to live for mine.

POSITIVES.
The book has some beautiful and very moving tributes to persistence, hard work, the fruits of the human mind, accomplishment against great odds, and the joy of a job done superlatively rather than merely well. One of the most influential books According to a 1991 Library of Congress report, it is considered the second most influential book after the Bible in the lives of its readers

CRITICISM one does not need to agree with a philosophy to appreciate it

Book is full of extremes and absolutes, with no middle ground or compromise. Rands abandonment of God. A little too lengthy with multiple page diatribes. The values Rand promotes are precisely the opposite she enforces by positioning her book as the rationalists Bible.