"The hour before the dawn is the darkest" goes a popular saying, but is it actually the dawn we were waiting for? Or is it the dark hour before the apocalypse of human hopes? This edition brings to you the dystopian novels and novellas that will make you wonder even more - some you are familiar with and some new surprises! So come and dwell in the shadows of this dark, dark hour and see the ruthless power of totalitarian super Anthem (Ayn Rand) Iron Heel (Jack London) Meccania the Super-State (Owen Gregory) Lord of the World (Hugh Benson) When The Sleeper Wakes (H. G. Wells) The Time Machine (H. G. Wells) The First Men in the Moon (H. G. Wells) Caesar's Column (Ignatius Donnelly) The Secret of the League (Ernest Bramah) City of Endless Night (Milo Hastings) Looking Further Backward (Arthur Dudley Vinton) The Heads of Cerberus (Francis Stevens) The Fixed Period (Anthony Trollope) The Machine Stops (E. M. Forster) The Night of the Long Knives (Fritz Leiber) Perchance to Dream (Richard Stockham) The Guardians (Irving E. Cox) Erewhon (Samuel Butler)
Polemical novels, such as The Fountainhead (1943), of primarily known Russian-American writer Ayn Rand, originally Alisa Rosenbaum, espouse the doctrines of objectivism and political libertarianism.
Fiction of this better author and philosopher developed a system that she named. Educated, she moved to the United States in 1926. After two early initially duds and two Broadway plays, Rand achieved fame. In 1957, she published Atlas Shrugged, her best-selling work.
Rand advocated reason and rejected faith and religion. She supported rational and ethical egoism as opposed to altruism. She condemned the immoral initiation of force and supported laissez-faire capitalism, which she defined as the system, based on recognizing individual rights, including private property. Often associated with the modern movement in the United States, Rand opposed and viewed anarchism. In art, she promoted romantic realism. She sharply criticized most philosophers and their traditions with few exceptions.
Books of Rand sold more than 37 million copies. From literary critics, her fiction received mixed reviews with more negative reviews for her later work. Afterward, she turned to nonfiction to promote her philosophy, published her own periodicals, and released several collections of essays until her death in 1982.
After her death, her ideas interested academics, but philosophers generally ignored or rejected her and argued that her approach and work lack methodological rigor. She influenced some right conservatives. The movement circulates her ideas to the public and in academic settings.