Atlas Shrugged is a narrative that intertwines ethics, metaphysics, politics, economics, and sex. It is the story of a man who said he would stop the motor of the world, and did. Is he a destroyer or the greatest of liberators? The reader is invited to discover the answer through a mystery story that integrates a ruthlessly brilliant plot structure with an irresistible suspense.

The novel presents an astounding panorama of human life - from the productive genius who becomes a worthless playboy, to the great steel industrialist who does not know he is working for his own destruction, to the philosopher who becomes a pirate, to the composer who gives up his career on the night of his triumph, to the woman who runs a transcontinental railroad, to the lowest track worker in her Terminal tunnels.

Atlas Shrugged is not only a philosophical revolution told in the form of an action thriller but also a masterful depiction of the potential of human greatness, portrayed with all the poetry and power of one of the twentieth century's leading artists.