Synopsis "Anthem "

Anthem is Ayn Rand's classic tale of a dark future age of the great "We"-a world that deprives individuals of name, independence, and values. Written a full decade before George Orwell's "1984," this dystopian novel depicts a man who seeks escape from a society in which individuality has been utterly destroyed. Rand expertly shows how collectivism (including social programs in the United States) destroys freedom and individuality. Her philosophy is simple: "planning" is a synonym for "collectivism," and "collectivism" is a metaphor for communism and tyranny. This important book should be read by all who are concerned about the role of government in modern life. Newly designed and typeset in a modern 6-by-9-inch format by Waking Lion Press.

Ayn Rand

(Author)

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Ayn Rand (St. Petersburg, 1905; New York, 1982) was a writer and philosopher born in Russia and naturalized American. After publishing her first two novels, We the Living (1936) and Anthem (1938), she achieved success with The Fountainhead (1943) and Atlas Shrugged (1957), her magnum opus. In these works, Rand developed her philosophy, known as Objectivism, in which she concretizes her original vision of man as «a heroic being, with his own happiness as the moral purpose of his life, with productive achievement as his noblest activity, and reason as his only absolute».

Later, she would establish the theoretical foundations of this philosophy in her non-fiction books: Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology (1979), The Virtue of Selfishness (1964), Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal (1966), and The Romantic Manifesto (1969).

Her legacy continues to be enormously influential among conservatives and libertarians, both in the United States and around the world, because it directly confronts the acquired cultural inertia, challenging the axis «mysticism-altruism-collectivism» and replacing it with a philosophy based on: «reason-selfishness-capitalism».

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