Railroad executive Dagny Taggart and her lover, steel magnate Hank Rearden, struggle against 'looters' who want to exploit their productivity. The book depicts a dystopian United States in which private businesses suffer under increasingly burdensome laws and regulations.
Of Rand's works of fiction, it contains her most extensive statement of her philosophical system. 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. 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. 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. Atlas Shrugged is a 1957 novel by Ayn Rand.
