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Reception

Atlas Shrugged debuted on The New York Times Bestseller List at #6 three days after its publication date.^[9] It remained on the list for 21 weeks, peaking at #4 for a six-week period beginning December 8, 1957.^[9]

Atlas Shrugged was generally disliked by critics, despite being a popular success. Helen Beal Woodward, reviewing Atlas Shrugged for The Saturday Review, opined that the novel was written with "dazzling virtuosity" but that it was "shot through with hatred."^[37] This was echoed by Granville Hicks, writing for The New York Times Book Review, who also stated that the book was "written out of hate."^[38] The reviewer for Time magazine asked: "Is it a novel? Is it a nightmare? Is it Superman––in the comic strip or the Nietzschean version?"^[39] In the conservative magazine National Review, Whittaker Chambers called Atlas Shrugged "sophomoric" and "remarkably silly," and said it "can be called a novel only by devaluing the term".^[40] Chambers argued against the novel's implicit endorsement of atheism, whereby "Randian man, like Marxian man is made the center of a godless world."^[41] Chambers also wrote that the implicit message of the novel is akin to "Hitler's National Socialism and Stalin's brand of Communism" ("To the gas chambers go!").^[41]

The negative reviews produced responses from some of Rand's admirers, including a letter by Alan Greenspan to The New York Times Book Review, in which he responded to Hicks' claim that "the book was written out of hate" by saying, "...Atlas Shrugged is a celebration of life and happiness. Justice is unrelenting. Creative individuals and undeviating purpose and rationality achieve joy and fulfillment. Parasites who persistently avoid either purpose or reason perish as they should."^[42] In an unpublished letter to the National Review, Leonard Peikoff wrote, "... Mr. Chambers is an ex-Communist. He has attacked Atlas Shrugged in the best tradition of the Communists - by lies, smears, and cowardly misrepresentations. Mr. Chambers may have changed a few of his political views; he has not changed the method of intellectual analysis and evaluation of the Party to which he belonged." National Review did not publish the letter. However, the letter will appear publicly for the first time in Essays on Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged.^[43]

Positive reviews appeared in a number of publications. Richard McLaughlin, reviewing the novel for The American Mercury, compared it to Uncle Tom's Cabin in importance.^[44] Well-known journalist and book reviewer John Chamberlain, writing in The New York Herald Tribune, found Atlas Shrugged satisfying on many levels: science fiction, a "Dostoevsky" detective story and, most importantly, a "profound political parable."^[45][46] However, Mimi Reisel Gladstein writes that reviewers who have "appreciated not only Rand's writing style but also her message" have been "far outweighed by those who have been everything from hysterically hostile to merely uncomprehending."^[47]

Psychological criticism

Former Ayn Rand associate Nathaniel Branden, to whom the book was originally dedicated, argues that Atlas Shrugged "encourages emotional repression and self-disowning" and that her works contain contradictory messages. Branden claims that the characters rarely talk "on a simple, human level without launching into philosophical sermons." He criticizes the potential psychological impact of the novel, stating that John Galt's recommendation to respond to wrongdoing with "contempt and moral condemnation" clashes with the view of psychologists who say this only causes the wrongdoing to repeat itself.^[48] Rand herself, however, would not have regarded a novel as needing to portray such "ordinary" human interaction at all, even if an entire philosophy of life does need to address this.^[49]

Praise and influence

According to a 1991 survey by the Library of Congress and the Book of the Month Club, Atlas Shrugged was second to the Bible as the book that made the most difference in American readers' lives.^[5] Modern Library's 1998 three-month online poll of the 100 best novels of the 20th century^[50][51] found Atlas rated #1 although it was not included on the list chosen by the Modern Library panel of authors and scholars.^[52] The list was formed on 217,520 votes cast.^[53]

In 1997, the libertarian Cato Institute held a joint conference with The Atlas Society, an Objectivist organization, to celebrate the fortieth anniversary of the publication of Atlas Shrugged.^[54] At this event, Howard Dickman of Reader's Digest stated that the novel had "turned millions of readers on to the ideas of liberty" and said that the book had the important message of the readers' "profound right to be happy."^[54]

The C-SPAN television series American Writers listed Rand as one of twenty-two surveyed figures of American literature, though primarily mentioning The Fountainhead rather than Atlas Shrugged.^[55]

Rand's impact on contemporary libertarian thought has been considerable, and it is noteworthy that the title of the leading libertarian magazine, Reason: Free Minds, Free Markets is taken directly from John Galt, the hero of Atlas Shrugged, who argues that "a free mind and a free market are corollaries."

Conservative commentators Neal Boortz^[56], Glenn Beck, and Rush Limbaugh^[57] have offered high praise of the book on their respective radio and television programs. Associate Justice of the Supreme Court Clarence Thomas cites Atlas Shrugged as among his favorite novels.^[58]

The award-winning 2007 dystopian video game BioShock was heavily influenced by this book, with the in-game location Rapture being a version of Galt's Gulch,^[59] a character named Atlas,^[60] and the name of another character, Andrew Ryan, being a play on Ayn Rand's name.^[61]

Renewed popularity

In the wake of the late 2000s recession, sales of Atlas Shrugged have sharply increased, according to The Economist magazine and The New York Times. The Economist reported that the fifty-two-year-old novel ranked #33 among Amazon.com's top-selling books on January 13, 2009 and that its thirty day sales average showed the novel selling three times faster than during the same period of the previous year. With an attached sales chart, The Economist reported that sales "spikes" of the book seemed to coincide with the release of economic data. The reason given by Republican Congressman John Campbell was: "People are starting to feel like we’re living through the scenario that happened in [the novel]... We're living in Atlas Shrugged," echoing Stephen Moore in an article published in The Wall Street Journal on January 9, 2009, titled "Atlas Shrugged From Fiction to Fact in 52 Years."^[62] Subsequently, on April 2, 2009, Atlas Shrugged ranked #1 in the "Fiction and Literature" category at Amazon and #15 in overall sales.^[63][64][65] Total sales of the novel in 2009 exceeded 500,000 copies.^[66]