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AtlasShrugged

AtlasShrugged

Atlas Shrugged is a novel by Ayn Rand, first published in 1957 in the USA. It is a highly philosophical and allegorical story that deals with themes of Rand's own Objectivist philosophy, though she was not yet known as a philosopher when it was written. However, whether or not she had philosophical intentions, and to what extent or sense the novel is an allegory is controversial. The theme of the novel is 'the importance of man's reasoning mind.' It is also one of the longest books ever published, at roughly over 1000 pages.

Philosophy and writing

The theme of Atlas Shrugged is that independent, rational thought is the motor that powers the world. In the book, "men of the mind" go on strike, allowing the collapse of what only they hold together — a peaceful cohesiveness. Rand claims that humans may create wherever forceful human interference is absent. Given no alternative, they remove themselves from the "looters." The book is rooted in Objectivism, the philosophical system founded by Rand. Rand suggests that society stagnates when independence and individual achievement are discouraged or demonized, and that, inversely, a society will become more prosperous as it allows, encourages, and rewards independence and individual achievement. Rand believed that independence flourishes to the extent that people are free, and that achievement is rewarded best when private property is respected strictly. She advocated laissez-faire capitalism as the political system that is most consistent with these beliefs. These considerations make Atlas Shrugged a highly political book, especially in its portrayal of fascism, socialism and communism, or indeed any form of state intervention in societal affairs, as fatally flawed. However, Rand claimed that it is not a fundamentally political book, but that the politics portrayed in the novel are a result of her attempt to display her image of the ideal man and the position of the human mind in society. Rand argues that independence and individual achievement drive the world, and should be embraced. Her worldview requires a "rational" moral code. She disputes the notion that self-sacrifice is a virtue, and is similarly dismissive of human faith in a god or higher being. The book positions itself against Christianity specifically, often directly within the characters' dialogue.

Setting

Exactly when Atlas Shrugged is meant to take place is kept deliberately vague. In section 152, the population of New York City is given as 7 million. The historical New York City reached 7 million people in the 1930s, which might place the novel sometime after that. There are many early 20th century technologies available, but the political situation is clearly different from actual history. One interpretation is that the novel takes place a hundred (or perhaps hundreds) of years in the future, implying that since the world lapsed into its socialistic morass, a global-wide stagnation has occurred in technological growth, population growth, and indeed growth of any kind; the wars, economic depressions, and other events of the 20th century would be a distant memory to all but scholars and academicians. This would be in line with Rand's ideas and commentary on other novels depicting utopian and dystopian societies. The concept of societal stagnation in the wake of collectivist systems is central to the plot of another of Rand's works, Anthem. All countries outside the US have become, or become during the novel, "People's States". There are many examples of early 20th century technology in Atlas Shrugged, but no post-war advances such as nuclear weapons, helicopters, or computers. Jet planes are mentioned briefly as being a relatively new technology. Television is a novelty that has yet to assume any cultural significance, while radio broadcasts are prominent. Though Rand does not use in the book many of the technological innovations available while she was writing, she introduces some advanced, fictional inventions (e.g., sound-based weapon of mass destruction, torture device, power plant). Most of the action in Atlas Shrugged occurs in the United States. However, there are important events around the world, such as in the People's States of Mexico, Chile, and Argentina, and piracy at sea.

Plot

A section by section analysis of Atlas Shrugged is available on Wikibooks. The basic plot follows the character of Dagny Taggart, a no-nonsense railroad executive, who struggles with the frustrations of the fundamental ideological, political and economic changes happening in the world around her. Other major characters include Hank Rearden, a highly successful steel tycoon, and Francisco d'Anconia, a prodigy who is also heir to a fortune based on the copper industry.
- Characters
  - Minor Characters
- Companies
- Concepts
- Places
- Technology
- Things
- Topics of note

Film adaptation

Rights to the novel Atlas Shrugged were puchased by the Baldwin Entertainment Group in 2003 with the intent of producing a feature-length film. Company leader Howard Baldwin was quoted in September 2004 as saying "...everything is on track and [the movie] hasn’t been held up one bit.... I assure you that this will be a big movie and IT WILL GET MADE." Two works of Rand's—The Fountainhead and We the Living —have been adapted into movies so far.

External links


- http://www.aynrand.org
- http://www.atlassociety.org/news_atlas-movie-updated050304.asp

References and further reading

Publications


- Atlas Shrugged, Ayn Rand; Signet; (September 1996) ISBN 0451191145
- Atlas Shrugged (Cliffs Notes), Andrew Bernstein; Cliffs Notes; (June 5, 2000) ISBN 0764585568
- The World of Atlas Shrugged, Robert Bidinotto/The Objectivist Center; HighBridge Company; (April 19, 2001) ISBN 156511471X
- Atlas Shrugged: Manifesto of the Mind (Twayne's Masterwork Studies, No. 174) Mimi Reisel Gladstein; Twayne Pub; (June 2000) ISBN 0805716386
- The Moral Revolution in Atlas Shrugged, Nathaniel Branden; The Objectivist Center; (July 1999) ISBN 1577240332
- Odysseus, Jesus, and Dagny, Susan McCloskey; The Objectivist Center; (August 1, 1998) ISBN 1577240251

Foreign translations


- German: Wer ist John Galt? (Hamburg, Germany: GEWIS Verlag), ISBN 3-932-56403-0.
- Italian: La rivolta di Atlante, 2 vol. (Milano, Garzanti, 1958), Out of print. Translator: Laura Grimaldi
- Japanese: 肩をすくめるアトラス 　(ビジネス社), ISBN 4-8284-1149-6. Translator: 脇坂 あゆみ.
- Norwegian: De som beveger verden. (Kagge Forlag, 2000), ISBN 8-248-90083-5 (hardcover), ISBN 8-248-90169-6 (paperback). Translator: John Erik Bøe Lindgren.
- Polish: Atlas Zbuntowany (Zysk i S-ka, 2004), ISBN 83-7150-969-3 (Twarda). Translator: Iwona Michałowska.
- Spanish: La Rebelion de Atlas. (Editorial Grito Sagrado), ISBN 9-872-09510-8 (hardcover), ISBN 9-872-09511-6 (paperback).
- Swedish: Och världen skälvde. ([http://www.timbro.se/rand/ Timbro Förlag], 2005), ISBN 9-175-66556-5. Translator: Maud Freccero.
- Turkish: Atlas Vazgeçti. (Plato Yayınları, 2003), ISBN 9-759-67726-1. Translator: Belkıs Çorapçı.

Reviews


- [http://www.cix.co.uk/~morven/atlas.html Review] from a self-proclaimed non-Libertarian
- [http://www.strangewords.com/archive/ayn.html Review] from the Weird Bookshelf ("fine science fiction books").
- Slade, Robert M. [http://victoria.tc.ca/int-grps/books/techrev/bkatshrg.rvw Review] from the Internet Review Project (1998).
- [http://www.pierssen.com/cfile/objectivist.htm A review] which, while attempting to address the environmentalist issues, claims that Atlas Shrugged is a sequel to The Lord of the Rings.
- [http://atlasshruggednovel.blogspot.com A Review] and in-depth Chapter-by-Chapter, Motif-by-Motif, etc. analysis.

Satires and parodies


- [http://kamita.com/misc/illuminatus/illuminatus.html "Telemachus Sneezed"] within Robert Anton Wilson's Illuminatus! Trilogy (Search for "Taffy Rhinestone" in the former link to read the spoof.)
- [http://www.spudworks.com/article/66/2/ The Abridged Atlas Shrugged]
- [http://www.modernhumorist.com/mh/0101/rand/ Atlas Shr], a look at parallel universes wherein all of Ayn Rand's books are four hundred pages shorter
- [http://www.mskousen.com/Books/Articles/shrugged.html Oscar Shrugged], a depiction of the first film festival held in Galt's Gulch
- [http://www.angryflower.com/atlass.gif Atlas Shrugged 2: One Hour Later], starring Bob the Angry Flower

Other works cited


- Asimov, Isaac. The Naked Sun, (Doubleday, 1957), ISBN 9-997-40641-9.
- Borges, Jorge L. "Two Books", in Selected Non-Fictions (Penguin, 1999), ISBN 0-670-84947-2, pp. 207-10; also the Prologue to Carlyle's On Heroes, pp. 413-18.
- Borges, Jorge L. "From Allegories to Novels", in Selected Non-Fictions (Penguin, 1999), ISBN 0-670-84947-2, pp. 337-40. See also [http://www.theonionavclub.com/review.php?review_id=2733].
- Burke, James. Connections (Little, Brown; 1978), ISBN 0-316-11681-5.
- Chambers, Whittaker. "Big Sister Is Watching You", National Review (28 December 1957), pp. 594-96.
- "I Second That Emotion", Futurama episode 2ACV01, written by Patrick M. Verrone, directed by Mark Ervin, first aired 21 November 1999.
- Gibbon, Edward. The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Vol. 1 (1776). Ed. by David Womersley, (Allen Lane, 1994), ISBN 0-713-99124-0.
- Gleick, James. Genius (Pantheon, 1992), ISBN 0-679-40836-3.
- Nabokov, Vladimir V. "On a Book Entitled Lolita", Anchor Review (Summer 1956). Reprinted in, e.g., Alfred Appel's The Annotated Lolita, (Vintage, 1991), ISBN 0-679-72729-9.
- Pynchon, Thomas R. The Crying of Lot 49, (J. B. Lippincott, 1965).
- Raymond, Eric S. "[http://www.catb.org/~esr/writings/sf-history.html A Political History of SF]" (November 2002).
- Russell, Bertrand. "[http://www.positiveatheism.org/hist/russell0.htm Why I Am Not a Christian]".
- Sagan, Carl. The Demon-Haunted World (Ballantine, 1996), ISBN 0-345-40946-9. See also [http://www.theonionavclub.com/review.php?review_id=3036].
- Shermer, Michael. "[http://www.skeptic.com/archives13.html The Unlikeliest Cult in History]", Skeptic 2 No. 2 (1993): pp. 74-81. Also printed in Why People Believe Weird Things (W. H. Freeman, 1997), ISBN 0-716-73090-1. Category:1957 books Category:Atlas Shrugged

Ayn Rand

, best known for her philosophy of Objectivism]] Ayn Rand (February 2 1905–March 6 1982; first name pronounced (IPA) (rhymes with 'mine')), born Alissa Zinovievna Rosenbaum, was best known for her philosophy of Objectivism and her novels "We the Living", Anthem, The Fountainhead, and Atlas Shrugged. Her philosophy and her fiction both emphasize, above all, her concepts of individualism, rational egoism ("rational self-interest"), and capitalism. Believing government has a legitimate but relatively minimal role in a free society, she was not an anarchist, but a minarchist (though she did not use the term). Her novels were based upon the projection of the Randian hero, a man whose ability and independence causes conflict with the masses, but who perseveres nevertheless to achieve his values. Rand viewed this hero as the ideal and made it the express goal of her literature to showcase such heroes. She believed: #That man must choose his values and actions by reason; #That the individual has a right to exist for his own sake, neither sacrificing self to others nor others to self; and #That no one has the right to seek values from others by physical force, or impose ideas on others by physical force.

Biography

Early life

Rand was born in Saint Petersburg, Russia, and was the eldest of three daughters of a Jewish family. Her parents were agnostic and largely non-observant. From an early age, she displayed a strong interest in literature and films. She started writing screenplays and novels from the age of seven. Her mother undertook to teach her French and subscribed to a magazine featuring stories for boys, where Rand found her first childhood hero: Cyrus Paltons, an Indian army officer in a Rudyard Kipling-style story called "The Mysterious Valley". Throughout her youth, she read the novels of Sir Walter Scott, Alexandre Dumas and other Romantic writers, and expressed a passionate enthusiasm toward the Romantic movement as a whole. She discovered Victor Hugo at the age of thirteen, and fell deeply in love with his novels. Later, she would cite him as her favorite novelist and the greatest novelist of world literature. She studied philosophy and history at the University of Petrograd. Her major literary discoveries in university were the works of Edmond Rostand, Friedrich Schiller and Fyodor Dostoevsky. She admired Rostand for his richly romantic imagination and Schiller for his grand, heroic scale. She admired Dostoevsky for his sense of drama and his intense moral judgments, but was deeply against his philosophy and his sense of life. She continued to write short stories and screenplays and wrote sporadically in her diary, which contained intensely anti-Soviet ideas. She also encountered the philosophical ideas of Nietzsche, and loved his exaltation of the heroic and independent individual in Thus Spoke Zarathustra; nevertheless she was strongly critical of his philosophy, going so far as to attack it in the introductions of her novels. Her greatest influence by far is Aristotle, especially his work Organon (Logic). She considered him the greatest philosopher ever. She then entered the State Institute for Cinema Arts in 1924 to study screenwriting; in late 1925, however, she was granted a visa to visit American relatives. She arrived in the United States in February 1926, at the age of twenty-one. After a brief stay with her relatives in Chicago, she resolved never to return to the Soviet Union, and set out for Hollywood to become a screenwriter. She then changed her name to "Ayn Rand". There is a story told that she named herself after the Remington Rand typewriter, but recent evidence has proved that this is not the case. She stated that her first name, 'Ayn', was an adaptation of the name of a Finnish writer. This may have been the Finnish-Estonian author Aino Kallas. Others have suggested that her name is derived from the South African rand, but the rand was not used until 1961. Michael Berliner and Richard Ralston, working for the Ayn Rand Institute and with access to Miss Rand’s records, have hypothesized an explanation derived from the appearance of Russian script of "Rozenbaum" (depicted [http://arname.davidhayes.net/ here] with an animation). A further refinement of this interpretation is to make "Rand" from the letters Rznb (Рзнб), again using script letters rather than type. The superiority of this method allows the name to be transformed entirely from Rozenbaum (Розенбаум) without changing the order of the letters, by: splitting: "Розенб аум" reversing: "аум Розенб" dropping two vowels: "аум Рзнб" At that point, the script version is very reminiscent of the name Ayn Rand. Image:ayn_rand_name.gif

Major works

Initially, Rand struggled in Hollywood and took odd jobs to pay her basic living expenses. While working as an extra on Cecil B. DeMille's King of Kings, she intentionally bumped into an aspiring young actor, Frank O'Connor, who caught her eye. The two were married in 1929. In 1931, Rand became a naturalized citizen of the United States. Her first literary success came with the sale of her screenplay Red Pawn in 1932 to Universal Studios. Rand then wrote the play The Night of January 16th in 1934, which was highly successful, and published two novels, We the Living (1936), and Anthem (1938). The two novels failed to gain any significant financial/critical success. She was up against The Red Decade in America, and Anthem did not even find a publisher in the United States; it was first published in England. Besides that, Rand had still not perfected her literary style and the novels cannot be considered fully representative. Without Rand's knowledge or permission, We The Living was made into a pair of films, Noi vivi and Addio, Kira in 1942 by Scalara Films, Rome. The films were nearly censored by the Italian government under Benito Mussolini, but they were allowed to be featured because the novel they were based upon was ostensibly anti-Soviet. The films were successful and the public easily realised that it was as much against Fascism as it was against Communism, and the government banned it quickly thereafter. These films were re-edited into a new version which was approved by Rand and re-released as We the Living in 1986. Rand's first major professional success came with her best-selling novel The Fountainhead (1943). She took seven years to write it. The novel was rejected by twelve publishers, who thought it was too intellectual and opposed to the mainstream of American thought, and that there would be no public for it. It was finally accepted by the Bobbs-Merrill Company publishing house, thanks mainly to a member of the editorial board, Archibald Ogden, who praised the book in the highest terms and finally prevailed. Despite these initial struggles The Fountainhead was a worldwide success, bringing Rand fame and financial security. The theme of The Fountainhead is "individualism and collectivism in man's soul". It features the lives of five main characters. The hero, Howard Roark, is Rand's ideal, a noble soul par excellence, an architect who is firmly and serenely devoted to his own ideals and believes that no man should copy the style of another in any field, and especially in architecture. All the other characters in the novel demand the renunciation of his values with varying degrees of intensity, but Roark maintains his integrity. A most interesting feature of Roark is that he does this unlike traditional heroes who launch into long and passionate monologues about their integrity and the unfairness of the world; Roark, by contrast, does it with a disdainful, almost contemptous taciturnity and laconicism. Rand's magnum opus, Atlas Shrugged, was published in 1957, becoming an international bestseller. Atlas Shrugged is often seen as Rand's most complete statement of the Objectivist philosophy in any of her works of fiction. In its appendix, she offered this summary: :"My philosophy, in essence, is the concept 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." The theme of Atlas Shrugged is "The role of man's mind in society". Rand upheld the industrialist as one of the most admirable members of any society and fiercely opposed the popular resentment accorded to industrialists. This led her to envision a novel wherein the industrialists of America go on strike and retreat to a mountainous hideaway. The American economy and its society in general slowly start to collapse. The government responds by increasing the already stifling controls on industrial concerns. The novel, despite having a political theme at its centre, deals with issues as complex and divergent as sex, music, medicine, and human ability. Along with Nathaniel Branden, his wife Barbara, and others including Alan Greenspan and Leonard Peikoff, (jokingly designated "The Collective"), Rand launched the Objectivist movement to promote her philosophy.

The Objectivist movement

Main article: The Objectivist movement In 1950 Rand moved to New York City, where in 1951 she met the young psychology student Nathaniel Branden [http://www.nathanielbranden.com], who had read her book, The Fountainhead, at the age of 14. Branden, then 19, enjoyed discussing Rand's emerging Objectivist philosophy with her. Together, Branden and some of his other friends formed a group that they dubbed the Ayn Rand Collective, which included some participation by future Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan. After several years, Rand and Branden's friendly relationship blossomed into a romantic affair, despite the fact that both were married at the time. This affair was accepted by their spouses but led to the separation and then divorce of Nathaniel Branden from his wife. Throughout the 1960s and 1970s, Rand developed and promoted her Objectivist philosophy through both her fiction [http://www.aynrand.org/site/PageServer?pagename=objectivism_fiction] and non-fiction [http://www.aynrand.org/site/PageServer?pagename=objectivism_nonfiction] works, and by giving talks at several east-coast universities, largely through the Nathaniel Branden Institute ("the NBI") which Branden had established to promote her philosophy. After a convoluted series of separations, Rand abruptly ended her relationship with both Nathaniel Branden and his wife, Barbara Branden, in 1968 when she learned of Nathaniel Branden's affair with Patrecia Scott (this later affair did not overlap chronologically with the earlier Branden/Rand affair). Rand refused to have any further dealings with the NBI. She then published a letter in "The Objectivist" announcing her repudiation of Branden for various reasons, including dishonesty, but did not mention their affair or her role in the schism. The two never reconciled, and Branden remained a persona non grata in the Objectivist movement. 1968 honoring Rand.]] Barbara Branden presented an account of the breakup of the affair in her book, The Passion of Ayn Rand. She describes the encounter between Nathaniel and Rand, saying that Rand slapped him numerous times, and denounced him in these words: "If you have an ounce of morality left in you, an ounce of psychological health — you'll be impotent for the next twenty years! And if you achieve any potency, you'll know it's a sign of still worse moral degradation!" Conflicts continued in the wake of the break with Branden and the subsequent collapse of the NBI. Many of her closest "Collective" friends began to part ways, and during the late 70's, her activities within the formal Objectivist movement began to decline, a situation which increased after the death of her husband in 1979. One of her final projects was work on a television adaptation of Atlas Shrugged. Rand died of heart failure on March 6, 1982 in New York City, years after having successfully battled cancer, and was interred in the Kensico Cemetery, Valhalla, New York. Valhalla, New York

Philosophical influences

Rand rejected virtually all other philosophical schools. She acknowledged a shared intellectual lineage with Aristotle and John Locke, and more generally with the philosophy of the Age of Enlightenment and Age of Reason. She occasionally remarked with approval on specific philosophical positions of, e.g., Baruch Spinoza and Thomas Aquinas. She seems also to have respected the American rationalist Brand Blanshard. However, she regarded most philosophers as at best incompetent and at worst downright evil. She singled out Immanuel Kant as the most influential of the latter sort. Nonetheless, there are connections between Rand's views and those of other philosophers. She acknowledged that she had been influenced at an early age by the writings of Friedrich Nietzsche. Though she later repudiated his thought, and reprinted her first novel, We The Living, with some wording changes in 1959, her own thought grew out of critical interaction with it. Generally, her political thought is in the tradition of classical liberalism. She expressed qualified enthusiasm for the economic thought of Ludwig von Mises and Henry Hazlitt. Though not mentioned as an influence by her specifically, parallels between her works and Ralph Waldo Emerson's essay Self-Reliance do exist. Later Objectivists, such as Richard Salsman, have claimed that Rand's economic theories are implicitly more supportive of the doctrines of Jean-Baptiste Say, though Rand herself was likely not acquainted with his work.

Politics and House Committee on Un-American Activities testimony

Rand's political views were radically pro-capitalist, anti-statist, and anti-communist. Her writings praised above all the human individual and the creative genius of which one is capable. She exalted what she saw as the heroic American values of egoism and individualism. Rand also had a strong dislike for mysticism, religion, and compulsory charity (forced extraction), all of which she believed helped foster a crippling culture of resentment towards individual human happiness and success. Rand detested many prominent liberal and conservative politicians of her time, even including prominent anti-communist crusaders like Presidents Harry S. Truman and Ronald Reagan and Senators Hubert H. Humphrey and Joseph McCarthy. In 1947, during the Red Scare, Rand testified as a "friendly witness" before the House Committee on Un-American Activities. [http://www.noblesoul.com/orc/texts/huac.html]. Rand's testimony involved analysis of the 1943 film Song of Russia. While many believe that Ayn Rand disclosed the names of members of the Communist Party in the U.S., thus exposing them to blacklisting, her testimony consisted entirely of comments regarding the disparity between her experiences in the Soviet Union and the fanciful portrayal of it in the film. Rand argued that the movie grossly misrepresented the socioeconomic conditions in the Soviet Union. She told the committee that the film presented life in the USSR as being much better than it actually was. Apparently this 1943 film was intentional wartime propaganda by U.S. patriots, trying to put their Soviet allies in World War II under the best possible light. After the HUAC hearings, when Ayn Rand was asked about her feelings on the effectiveness of their investigations, she described the process as "futile."

Legacy

Rand's funeral was attended by some of her prominent followers, including Alan Greenspan. A six-foot floral arrangement in the shape of a dollar sign was placed on her casket. [http://www.eckerd.edu/aspec/writers/atlas_shrugged.htm] In 1985, Leonard Peikoff, a surviving member of "The Collective" and Ayn Rand's designated heir, established "The Ayn Rand Institute: The Center for the Advancement of Objectivism". The Institute has since registered the name Ayn Rand as a trademark, despite Rand's desire that her name never be used to promote the philosophy she developed. Rand expressed her wish to keep her name and the philosophy of Objectivism separate to ensure the survival of her ideas. Another schism in the movement occurred in 1989, when Objectivist David Kelley wrote an article called "A Question of Sanction," [http://www.wetheliving.com/boston/sanction.html] in which he defended his choice to speak to non-Objectivist libertarian groups. Kelley wrote that Objectivism was not a "closed system" and should engage with other philosophies. Peikoff, in an article for The Intellectual Activist called "Fact and Value" [http://www.aynrand.org/site/PageServer?pagename=objectivism_f-v], argued that Objectivism is, indeed, a closed system, and that truth and moral goodness are intrinsically related. Peikoff expelled Kelley from his movement, whereupon Kelley founded The Institute for Objectivist Studies (now known as "The Objectivist Center"). Rand and Objectivism are less well known outside North America, though there are pockets of interest in Europe, Australia, and New Zealand, and her novels are reported to be very popular in India ([http://www.theatlasphere.com/metablog/000058.php]). Her work has had little effect on academic philosophy, for her followers are mostly (with some notable exceptions) drawn from the non-academic world.

Controversy

Rand's views are controversial. Religious and socially conservative thinkers have criticized her atheism. Many adherents and practicioners of continental philosophy would criticize her celebration of rationality and self-interest. Her extremely pro-capitalism political views have not been positively received within the American academy. Within the dominant philosophical movement in the English-speaking world, analytic philosophy, Rand's work has been mostly ignored. No leading research university in this tradition considers Rand or Objectivism to be an important philosophical specialty or research area, as is documented by Brian Leiter's report at [http://www.philosophicalgourmet.com/]. Some academics, however, are trying to bring Rand's work into the mainstream. For instance, there is an Ayn Rand Society [http://www.aynrandsociety.org/], founded in 1987, affiliated with the American Philosophical Association. A notable exception to the general lack of attention paid to Rand in the analytic community is the essay "On the Randian Argument" by Harvard University philosopher Robert Nozick, which appears in his collection Socratic Puzzles. Nozick's own libertarian political conclusions are similar to Rand's, but his essay is critical of her foundational argument in ethics, which claims that one's own life is, for each individual, the only ultimate value because it makes all other values possible. Nozick says that to make this argument sound, Rand still needs to explain why someone could not rationally prefer the state of eventually dying and having no values. Thus, he argues, her attempt to deduce the morality of selfishness is essentially an instance of assuming the conclusion or begging the question and that her solution to David Hume's famous is-ought problem is unsatisfactory. Nevertheless, Nozick did respect Rand as an author and noted that he found her books enjoyable and thought-provoking. Rand has sometimes been viewed with suspicion for her practice of presenting her philosophy in fiction and non-fiction books aimed at a general audience rather than publishing in peer-reviewed journals. Rand's defenders note that she is part of a long tradition of authors who wrote philosophically rich fiction — including Dante, John Milton, Fyodor Dostoevsky, and Albert Camus, and that other philosophers such as Jean-Paul Sartre presented their philosophies in both fictional and non-fictional forms. Other critics argue that Rand’s idealistic philosophy and her Romantic literary style are not applicable to the inhabited world. In particular, these critics claim that Rand's novels are made up of unrealistic and one-dimensional characters. They criticize the portrayal of the Objectivist heroes as incredibly intelligent, unencumbered by doubt, wealthy, and free of flaws, in contrast to the frequent portrayal of the antagonists as weak, pathetic, full of uncertainty, and lacking in imagination and talent. Defenders of Rand point out counterexamples to these criticisms: neither Eddie Willers nor Cherryl Taggart (both positive characters) is especially gifted or intelligent, but both are characters of dignity and respect; Leo Kovalensky suffers enormously due to his inability to cope with the brutality and banality of communism; Andrei Taganov dies after realizing his philosophical errors; Dominique Francon is initially bitterly unhappy because she believes evil is powerful; and Dagny Taggart thinks that she is capable of saving the world alone. Two of her main protagonists, Howard Roark and John Galt, did not begin life as rich. Though Rand believed that, under capitalism, valuable contributions will routinely be rewarded by wealth, she certainly did not think that wealth made a person virtuous. In fact, she presents various vicious apparatchiks and plutocrats who use statism to enrich themselves. Moreover, Hank Rearden is exploited because of his social naïveté. As for the purportedly weak and pathetic villains, Rand's defenders point out that Ellsworth Toohey is represented as being a great strategist and communicator from an early age, and Dr. Robert Stadler is a brilliant scientist. Rand herself replied to these literary criticisms (and in advance of much of them) with her essay "The Goal of My Writing" (1963). There, and in other essays collected in her book The Romantic Manifesto: A Philosophy of Literature (2nd rev. ed. 1975), Rand makes it clear that her goal is to project her vision of an ideal man: not man as he is, but man as he might and ought to be.

Bibliography

Fiction


- Night of January 16th (1934)
- We The Living (1936)
- Anthem (1938)
- The Fountainhead (1943)
- Atlas Shrugged (1957)

Posthumous fiction


- Three Plays (2005)

Nonfiction


- For the New Intellectual (1961)
- The Virtue of Selfishness (with Nathaniel Branden) (1964)
- Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal (with Nathaniel Branden, Alan Greenspan, and Robert Hessen) (1966)
- Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology (1967)
- The Romantic Manifesto (1969)
- The New Left: The Anti-Industrial Revolution (1971)
- Philosophy: Who Needs It (1982)

Posthumous nonfiction


- The Early Ayn Rand (edited and with commentary by Leonard Peikoff) (1984)
- The Voice of Reason: Essays in Objectivist Thought (edited by Leonard Peikoff; additional essays by Leonard Peikoff and Peter Schwartz) (1989)
- Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology second edition (edited by Harry Binswanger; additional material by Leonard Peikoff) (1990)
- Letters of Ayn Rand (edited by Michael S. Berliner) (1995)
- Journals of Ayn Rand (edited by David Harriman) (1997)
- Ayn Rand's Marginalia : Her Critical Comments on the Writings of over Twenty Authors (edited by Robert Mayhew) (1998)
- The Ayn Rand Column: Written for the Los Angeles Times (edited by Peter Schwartz) (1998)
- Russian Writings on Hollywood (edited by Michael S. Berliner) (1999)
- Return of the Primitive: The Anti-Industrial Revolution (expanded edition of The New Left; edited and with additional essays by Peter Schwartz) (1999)
- The Art of Fiction (edited by Tore Boeckmann) (2000)
- The Art of Nonfiction (edited by Robert Mayhew) (2001)
- The Objectivism Research CD-ROM (collection of most of Rand's works in CD-ROM format) (2001)
- Ayn Rand Answers (2005)

References

In addition to Rand's own works (listed above), the following references discuss Rand's life and/or literary work. References that discuss her philosophy can be found in the bibliography of work on Objectivism.
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External links

General information
- [http://www.noblesoul.com/orc/bio/biofaq.html Ayn Rand FAQ]
- [http://www.noblesoul.com/orc/bio/biofaq-notes.html Ayn Rand FAQ-notes]
- [http://www.aynrand.org/site/PageServer?pagename=about_ayn_rand_faq_index2 Frequently Asked Questions on Ayn Rand]
- [http://www.utm.edu/research/iep/r/rand.htm "Ayn Rand" entry from the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy]
- [http://www.noblesoul.com/orc/bio/biofaq.html#Q0/ Rand's biography]
- [http://www.noblesoul.com/orc/ Objectivism Reference Center] Organizations promoting Ayn Rand's philosophy
- [http://www.aynrand.org/ The Ayn Rand Institute]
- [http://www.ariwatch.com/ ARI Watch]
- [http://www.objectivistcenter.org/ The Objectivist Center]
- [http://www.capitalismcenter.org/ The Center for the Advancement of Capitalism] Articles
- [http://chronicle.com/colloquy/99/rand/background.htm Ayn Rand Has Finally Caught the Attention of Scholars] by Jeff Sharlet
- [http://www.mclemee.com/id39.html The Heirs of Ayn Rand by Scott McLemee] An article published in Lingua Franca which covers the arc of her publishing career, while alive and posthomous, as well as the continuing scholarship.
- [http://www.lrb.co.uk/v27/n23/turn03_.html As Astonishing as Elvis by Jenny Turner] Essay review of Ayn Rand by Jeff Britting Articles critical of Ayn Rand
- [http://www.lewrockwell.com/rothbard/rothbard23.html The Sociology of the Ayn Rand Cult by Murray Rothbard] Written in 1972, this was the first piece of Rand revisionism from the libertarian standpoint.
- [http://www.2think.org/02_2_she.shtml The Unlikeliest Cult in History by Michael Shermer]
- [http://world.std.com/~mhuben/critobj.html "Extensive list of critical essays that Objectivists must answer"]
- [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bibliography_of_work_on_Objectivism] "The works of numerous philosophers that are critical of Rand's Objectivism are included at this internal link #11" Rand's associates
- [http://www.leonardpeikoff.com/ Leonard Peikoff's website]
- [http://www.barbarabranden.com/ Barbara Branden's website]
- [http://www.nathanielbranden.com/ Nathaniel Branden's website] Online groups and blogs
- [http://www.TIADaily.com/ TIA Daily] — Daily news and commentary from the Objectivist perspective by e-mail
- [http://www.DrHurd.com/ Dr. Michael J. Hurd, psychologist] — The Daily Dose of Reason: psychology, life coaching and comments on cultural/political topics from an Objectivist perspective — also, The Living Resources Newsletter and Dr. Hurd's publications
- [http://www.theatlasphere.com/ Ayn Rand Admirers] — The Atlasphere: Member directory, dating service, columns, and news for admirers of Rand's novels
- [http://www.objectivismonline.net/ ObjectivismOnline.Net] — Contains [http://forum.objectivismonline.net/ forums], blogs, essays, chat room, and a [http://wiki.objectivismonline.net wiki on Objectivism]
- [http://www.solopassion.com Sense of Life Objectivists] — Online columns and discussion, by and for Objectivists - hosted by Lindsay Perigo
- [http://forums.4aynrandfans.com The Forum for Ayn Rand Fans]
- [http://www.objectivistblogs.com Objectivist Blogs] — A list of Rand-influenced bloggers
- [http://www.hblist.com Harry Binswanger List] — E-mail-based discussion group
- [http://randex.org/ Randex] — Index of online media references to Ayn Rand and Objectivism
- [http://www.objectivism.net Objectivism.net] — Ayn Rand on CD-ROM, and good links
- [http://wiki.objectivismonline.net/ The Objectivism Wiki]
- [http://www.aynrandstudies.com The Journal of Ayn Rand Studies] — Contains abstracts of articles, author bios, links to several articles, and submission guidelines.
- [http://www.starshipaurora.com/aynrand100.html Ayn Rand 100 Tribute] — includes reference to a tribute album, "Concerto of Deliverance", inspired by Rand's words describing such music. Rand's writing and speeches
- [http://www.noblesoul.com/orc/texts/anthem/complete.html Anthem] — The complete text of the novel, which has fallen into the public domain
- [http://www.ayn-rand.com/ayn-rand-atlas-shrugged.asp Atlas Shrugged ] — Book outline
- [http://www.ayn-rand.com/ayn-rand-fountainhead.asp The Fountainhead] — Book outline
- [http://www.ayn-rand.com/ayn-rand-we-the-living.asp We The Living] — Book outline
- [http://www.tracyfineart.com/usmc/philosophy_who_needs_it.htm "Philosophy: Who Needs It?"] — Address To The Graduating Class Of The United States Military Academy at West Point, New York - March 6, 1974
- [http://www.noblesoul.com/orc/texts/huac.html Rand's HUAC testimony] — Transcript
- [http://www.libertyhaven.org/bookstore/B00004LC7UAMUS169912.shtml We the Living] — Video outline
- [http://www.americanwriters.org/writers/rand.asp Rand featured on C-Span's "American Writers"] — RealVideo discussions on Rand's writing
- Ayn Rand Art
[http://www.yoyita.com/portrait.htm A portrait of Ayn Rand] Rand, Ayn Rand, Ayn Rand, Ayn Rand, Ayn Rand, Ayn Rand, Ayn Rand, Ayn Rand, Ayn Rand, Ayn ja:アイン・ランド

United States

:For alternative meanings, see the disambiguation page for US, USA, United States, or American. The United States of America is a federal democratic republic situated primarily in central North America. It comprises 50 states and one federal district, and has several territories. It is also referred to, with varying formality, as the United States, the U.S., the U.S.A., the States, or simply and most commonly, America. The official founding date of the United States is July 4, 1776, when the Second Continental Congress—representing thirteen British colonies—adopted the Declaration of Independence. However, the structure of the government was profoundly changed in 1788, when the states replaced the Articles of Confederation with the United States Constitution. The date on which each of the fifty states adopted the Constitution is typically regarded as the date that state "entered the Union" (became part of the United States). Since the mid-20th century, following World War II, the United States has emerged as a dominant global influence in economic, political, military, scientific, technological, and cultural affairs.

Geography and climate

The United States shares land borders with Canada (to the north) and Mexico (to the south), and territorial water boundaries with Canada, Russia, the Bahamas, and numerous smaller nations. It is otherwise bounded by the Pacific Ocean and the Bering Sea, in the west; the Arctic Ocean, in the northernmost areas; and the Atlantic Ocean, the Gulf of Mexico, and the Caribbean Sea, in the eastern and southeastern areas. Forty-eight of the states are in the single region between Canada and Mexico; this group is referred to, with varying precision and formality, as the continental or contiguous United States, sometimes abbreviated CONUS, and as the Lower 48. Alaska, which is not included in the term contiguous United States, is at the northwestern end of North America, separated from the Lower 48 by Canada. The archipelago of Hawaii is in the Pacific Ocean. The capital city, Washington, District of Columbia is a federal district located on land donated by the state of Maryland. (Virginia also donated land, but it was returned in 1847.) The United States also has overseas territories with varying levels of independence and organization. When inland water is included in the total area, only Russia and Canada are larger than the United States; if inland water is excluded, China ranks third and the U.S. ranks fourth. The United States' total area is 3,718,711 square miles (9,631,418 km²), of which land makes up 3,537,438 square miles (9,161,923 km²) and water makes up 181,273 square miles (469,495 km²). The United States' landscape is one of the most varied among those of the world's nations: among its many features are temperate forestland and rolling hills, on the east coast; mangrove, in Florida; the Great Plains, in the center of the country; the Mississippi–Missouri river system; the Great Lakes, four of the five of which are shared with Canada; the Rocky Mountains, west of the Great Plains; deserts and temperate coastal zones, west of the Rocky Mountains; and temperate rain forests, in the Pacific northwest. Alaska's tundra, and the volcanic, tropical islands of Hawaii add to the geographic diversity. Hawaii The climate varies along with the landscape, from tropical in Hawaii and southern Florida to tundra in Alaska and atop some of the highest mountains. Most of the North and East experience a temperate continental climate, with warm summers and cold winters. Most of the South experiences a subtropical humid climate with mild winters and long, hot, humid summers. Rainfall decreases markedly from the humid forests of the Eastern Great Plains to the semi-arid shortgrass prairies on the high plains abutting the Rocky Mountains. Arid deserts, including the Mojave, extend through the lowlands and valleys of the southwest, from westernmost Texas to California and northward throughout much of Nevada. Some parts of California have a Mediterranean climate. Rainforests line the windward mountains of the Pacific Northwest from Oregon to Alaska.

History

American history started with the migration of people from Asia across the Bering land bridge approximately 12,000 years ago following large animals that they hunted into the Americas. These Native Americans left evidence of their presence in petroglyphs, burial mounds, and other artifacts. It is estimated that 2-9 million people lived in the territory now occupied by the U.S. before European contact, and the subsequent introduction of foreign diseases such as small pox that greatly diminished the native populations. Some advanced societies were the Anasazi of the southwest, who inhabited Chaco Canyon, and the Woodland Indians, who built Cahokia, located near present-day St Louis, a city with a population of 40,000 at its peak in AD 1200. Vikings first visited North America around 1000, but did not settle permanently. Following the discovery voyages of Christopher Columbus around 1492, other Europeans began to explore and settle there. During the 1500s and 1600s, the Spanish settled parts of the present-day Southwest and Florida, founding St. Augustine, Florida in 1565 and Santa Fe (in what is now New Mexico) in 1607. The first successful English settlement was at Jamestown, Virginia, also in 1607. Within the next two decades, several Dutch settlements, including New Amsterdam (the predecessor to New York City), were established in what are now the states of New York and New Jersey. In 1637, Sweden established a colony at Fort Christina (in what is now Delaware), but lost the settlement to the Dutch in 1655. This was followed by extensive British settlement of the east coast. The British colonists remained relatively undisturbed by their home country until after the French and Indian War, when France ceded Canada and the Great Lakes region to Britain. Britain then imposed taxes on the 13 colonies, widely regarded by the colonists as unfair because they were denied representation in the British Parliament. Tensions between Britain and the colonists increased, and the thirteen colonies eventually rebelled against British rule. British Parliament, George Washington (1789-1797).]] In 1776, the 13 colonies split from Great Britain and formed the United States, the world's first constitutional and democratic federal republic, after their Declaration of Independence of that year, and the Revolutionary War (1775 to 1783). The original political structure was a confederation in 1777, ratified in 1781 as the Articles of Confederation. After long debate, this was supplanted by the Constitution in 1789, forming a more centralized federal government. Prior to all these was the Albany Congress in 1754, in which a union was first seriously proposed. From early colonial times, there was a shortage of labor, which encouraged unfree labor, particularly indentured servitude and slavery. In the mid-19th century, a major division occurred in the United States over the issue of states' rights and the expansion of slavery. The northern states had become opposed to slavery, while the southern states saw it as necessary for the continued success of southern agriculture and wanted it expanded to the territories. Several federal laws were passed in an attempt to settle the dispute, including the Missouri Compromise and the Compromise of 1850. The dispute reached a crisis in 1861, when seven southern states seceded1 from the Union and formed the Confederate States of America, leading to the Civil War. Soon after the war began, four more southern states seceded. During the war, Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation, mandating the freedom of all slaves in states in rebellion, though full emancipation did not take place until after the end of the war in 1865, the dissolution of the Confederacy, and the Thirteenth Amendment took effect. The Civil War effectively ended the question of a state's right to secede, and is widely accepted as a major turning point after which the federal government became more powerful than state governments. Thirteenth Amendment). The title of the painting, from a 1726 poem by Bishop Berkeley, was a phrase often quoted in the era of Manifest Destiny, expressing a widely held belief that civilization had steadily moved westward throughout history. [http://americanart.si.edu/t2go/1lw/1931.6.1.html (more)] ]] During the 19th century, many new states were added to the original 13 as the nation expanded across the continent. Manifest Destiny was a philosophy that encouraged westward expansion in the United States. As the population of the Eastern states grew and as a steady increase of immigrants entered the country, settlers moved steadily westward across North America. In the process, the U.S. displaced most American Indian nations. This displacement of American Indians continues to be a matter of contention in the U.S. with many tribes attempting to assert their original claims to various lands. In some areas American Indian populations were reduced by foreign diseases contracted through contact with European settlers, and US settlers acquired those emptied lands. In other instances American Indians were removed from their traditional lands by force. Though some would say the U.S. was not a colonial power until the Spanish-American War when it acquired Puerto Rico, Guam and the Philippines, the dominion exercised over land in North America the United States claimed is essentially colonial. The Philippines became independent in 1946. During this period, the nation also became an industrial power. This continued into the 20th century, which has been termed "the American Century" because of the nation's overriding influence on the world. The US became a center for innovation and technological development; major technologies that America either developed or was greatly involved in improving include the telephone, television, computer, the Internet, nuclear weapons, nuclear power, aviation, and aeronautics. In addition to the Civil War, another major traumatic experience for the nation was the Great Depression (1929 to 1939). The nation has also taken part in several major foreign wars, including World War I and World War II (in both of which the US later joined the Allies). During the Cold War, the US was a major player in the Korean War and Vietnam War, and, along with the Soviet Union, was considered one of the world's two "superpowers". With the collapse of the Soviet Union, the US emerged as the world's leading economic and military power. Beginning in the 1990s, the United States became very involved in police actions and peacekeeping, including actions in Kosovo, Haiti, Somalia and Liberia, and the first Persian Gulf War driving Iraq out of Kuwait. After attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon on September 11, 2001, the United States and other allied nations found themselves involved in what has come to be called the "War on Terrorism," which has primarily encompassed military actions in both Afghanistan and Iraq.

Government

Iraq of the United States.]]

Republic and suffrage

The United States is an example of a constitutional republic, with a government composed of and operating through a set of limited powers imposed by its design and enumerated in the United States Constitution. Specifically, the nation operates as a presidential democracy. There are three levels of government: federal, state, and local. Officials of each of these levels are either elected by eligible voters via secret ballot or appointed by other elected officials. Americans enjoy almost universal suffrage from the age of 18 regardless of race, sex, or wealth. There are some limits, however: felons are disenfranchised and in some states former felons are likewise. Furthermore, the national representation of territories and the federal district of Washington, DC in Congress is limited: residents of the District of Columbia are subject to federal laws and federal taxes but their only Congressional representative is a non-voting delegate.

Federal government

The federal government is the national government, comprising the Legislative Branch (led by Congress), the Executive Branch (led by the President), and the Judicial Branch (led by the Supreme Court). These three branches were designed to apply checks and balances on each other. The Constitution limits the powers of the federal government to defense, foreign affairs, the issuing and management of currency, the management of trade and relations between the states, and the protection of human rights. In addition to these explicitly stated powers, the federal government—with the assistance of the Supreme Court—has gradually extended these powers into such areas as welfare and education, on the basis of the "necessary and proper" clause of the Constitution.

The Congress

necessary and proper The Congress of the United States is the legislative branch of the federal government of the United States. It is bicameral, comprising the House of Representatives and the Senate. The House of Representatives consists of 435 members, each of whom represents a congressional district and serves for a two-year term. House seats are apportioned among the states by population; in contrast, each state has two Senators, regardless of population. There are a total of 100 senators, who serve six-year terms. The powers of Congress are limited to those enumerated in the Constitution; all other powers are reserved to the states and the people. The Constitution also includes the necessary-and-proper clause, which grants Congress the power to "make all laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into execution the foregoing powers."

The President

necessary-and-proper clause At the top level of the executive branch is the President of the United States. The President and Vice-President are elected as 'running mates' for four-year terms by the Electoral College, for which each state, as well as the District of Columbia, is allocated a number of seats based on its representation (or ostensible representation, in the case of D. C.) in both houses of Congress (see U.S. Electoral College). The relationship between the President and the Congress reflects that between the English monarchy and parliament at the time of the framing of the United States Constitution. Congress can legislate to constrain the President's executive power, even with respect to his or her command of the armed forces; however, this power is used only very rarely—a notable example was the constraint placed on President Richard Nixon's strategy of bombing Cambodia during the Vietnam War. The President cannot directly propose legislation, and must rely on supporters in Congress to promote his or her legislative agenda. The President's signature is required to turn congressional bills into law; in this respect, the President has the power—only occasionally used—to veto congressional legislation. Congress can override a presidential veto with a two-thirds majority vote in both houses. The ultimate power of Congress over the President is that of impeachment or removal of the elected President through a House vote, a Senate trial, and a Senate vote. The threat of using this power has had major political ramifications in the cases of Presidents Andrew Johnson, Richard Nixon, and Bill Clinton. The President makes around 2,000 executive appointments, including members of the Cabinet and ambassadors, which must be approved by the Senate; the President can also issue executive orders and pardons, and has other Constitutional duties, among them the requirement to give a State of the Union address to Congress once a year. Although the President's constitutional role may appear to be constrained, in practice, the office carries enormous prestige that typically eclipses the power of Congress: the Presidency has justifiably been referred to as 'the most powerful office in the world'. The Vice President is first in the line of succession, and is the President of the Senate ex officio, with the ability to cast a tie-breaking vote. The members of the President's Cabinet are responsible for administering the various departments of state, including the Department of Defense, the Justice Department, and the State Department. These departments and department heads have considerable regulatory and political power, and it is they who are responsible for executing federal laws and regulations. George W. Bush is the 43rd President, currently serving his second term.

The Courts

George W. Bush The highest court is the Supreme Court, which consists of nine justices. The court deals with federal and constitutional matters, and can declare legislation made at any level of the government as unconstitutional, nullifying the law and creating precedent for future law and decisions. Below the Supreme Court are the courts of appeals, and below them in turn are the district courts, which are the general trial courts for federal law. Separate from, but not entirely independent of, this federal court system are the individual court systems of each state, each dealing with its own laws and having its own judicial rules and procedures. A case may be appealed from a state court to a federal court only if there is a federal question; the supreme court of each state is the final authority on the interpretation of that state's laws and constitution.

State and local governments

supreme court of each state. Note that Alaska and Hawaii are shown at different scales, and that the Aleutian Islands and the uninhabited Northwestern Hawaiian Islands are omitted from this map.]] The state governments have the greatest influence over people's daily lives. Each state has its own written constitution and has different laws. There are sometimes great differences in law and procedure between the different states, concerning issues such as property, crime, health, and education. The highest elected official of each state is the Governor. Each state also has an elected legislature (bicameral in every state except Nebraska), whose members represent the different parts of the state. Of note is the New Hampshire legislature, which is the third-largest legislative body in the English-speaking world, and has one representative for every 3,000 people. Each state maintains its own judiciary, with the lowest level typically being county courts, and culminating in each state supreme court, though sometimes named differently. In some states, supreme and lower court justices are elected by the people; in others, they are appointed, as they are in the federal system. The institutions that are responsible for local government are typically town, city, or county boards, making laws that affect their particular area. These laws concern issues such as traffic, the sale of alcohol, and keeping animals. The highest elected official of a town or city is usually the mayor. In New England, towns operate directly democratically, and in some states, such as Rhode Island and Connecticut, counties have little or no power, existing only as geographic distinctions. In other areas, county governments have more power, such as to collect taxes and maintain law enforcement agencies.

Political divisions

With the Declaration of Independence, the thirteen colonies proclaimed themselves to be nation states modeled after the European states of the time. Although considered as sovereigns initially, under the Articles of Confederation of 1781 they entered into a "Perpetual Union" and created a fully sovereign federal state, delegating certain powers to the national Congress, including the right to engage in diplomatic relations and to levy war, while each retaining their individual sovereignty, freedom and independence. But the national government proved too ineffective, so the administrative structure of the government was vastly reorganized with the United States Constitution of 1789. Under this new union, the continued status of the individual states as sovereign nation states fell into dispute in 1861, as several states attempted to secede from the union; in response, then-President Abraham Lincoln claimed that such secession was illegal, and the result was the American Civil War. Since the Union victory in 1865, the independent status of the individual states has not been broached again by any state, and the status of each state within the union has been deemed by mainstream officials and academics to be settled as being subordinate to the union as a whole. In subsequent years, the number of states grew steadily due to western expansion, the purchase of lands by the national government from other nation states, and the subdivision of existing states, resulting in the current total of 50. The states are generally divided into smaller administrative regions, including counties, cities and townships. The United States–Canadian border is the longest undefended political boundary in the world. The U.S. is divided into three distinct sections:
- the "continental United States," also known as "the Lower 48" and more accurately termed the conterminous, coterminous or contiguous United States
- Alaska, which is physically connected only to Canada
- the archipelago of Hawaii, in the central Pacific Ocean. The United States also holds several other territories, districts, and possessions, notably the federal district of the District of Columbia, which is the nation's capital, and several overseas insular areas, the most significant of which are American Samoa, Guam, the Northern Mariana Islands, Puerto Rico, and the United States Virgin Islands. The Palmyra Atoll is the United States' only incorporated territory; it is unorganized and uninhabited. The United States Navy has held a base at a portion of Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, since 1898. The United States government possesses a lease to this land, which only mutual agreement or United States abandonment of the area can terminate. The present Cuban government of Fidel Castro disputes this arrangement, claiming Cuba was not truly sovereign at the time of the signing. The United States argues this point moot because Cuba apparently ratified the lease post-revolution, and with full sovereignty, when it cashed one rent check in accordance with the disputed treaty.

Foreign relations and military

sovereign] The immense military and economic dominance of the United States has made foreign relations an especially important topic in its politics, with considerable concern about the image of the United States throughout the world. Reactions towards the United States by other nationalities are often strong, ranging from uninhibited admiration and mimicking of all things American to anti-Americanism. US foreign policy has swung about several times over the course of its history between the poles of strict isolationism and imperialism and everywhere in between. Three of the nation's four military branches are administered by the Department of Defense: the Army, the Navy (including the Marine Corps), and the Air Force. The Coast Guard falls under the jurisdiction of the Department of Homeland Security in peacetime, but is placed under the Department of the Navy in time of war. The combined United States armed forces consist of 1.4 million active duty personnel, along with several hundred thousand each in the Reserves and the National Guard. Military conscription ended in 1973. The United States Armed forces are considered to be the most powerful military (of any sort) on Earth and their force projection capabilities are unrivaled by any other nation. The 2005 defense budget amounted to $401.7 billion, which is an increase of 4% over 2004 and of 35% since 2001. Over 50% of that number is spent in research & development. (For comparison, in 2004 the European Union (considered as the second-largest military force) had a combined total of 1.6 million troops, and a defense budget of €160 billion, with less than 10% of that being spent on R&D.)

Largest cities

The United States has dozens of major cities, including 11 of the 55 global cities of all types — with three "alpha" global cities: New York City, Los Angeles, and Chicago. The figures expressed below are for populations within city limits. A different ranking is evident when considering U.S. metro area populations, although the top three would be unchanged. Note that some cities not listed (such as Atlanta, Boston, Las Vegas, Miami, Nashville, New Orleans, Seattle, and Washington, D.C.) are still considered important on the basis of other factors and issues, including culture, economics, heritage, and politics. The twenty largest cities, based on the United States Census Bureau's 2004 estimates, are as follows:

Economy

The United States has the largest single-country economy in the world, with a per-capita gross domestic product of $40,100. In this market-oriented economy, private individuals and business firms make most of the decisions, and the federal and state governments buy needed goods and services predominantly in the private marketplace. gross domestic product The largest industry of the U.S. is now service, which employs roughly three quarters of the U.S. work force. The United States has many natural resources, including oil and gas, metals, and such minerals as gold, soda ash, and zinc. In agriculture, the U.S. is a top producer of, among other crops, corn, soy beans, and wheat; the United States is a net exporter of food. The U.S. manufacturing sector produces goods such as, cars, airplanes, steel, and electronics, among many others. Economic activity varies greatly from one part of the country to another, with many industries being largely dependent on a certain city or region; New York City is the center of the American financial, publishing, broadcasting, and advertising industries; Silicon Valley is the country’s primary location for high-technology companies, while Los Angeles is the most important center for film production. The Midwest is known for its reliance on manufacturing and heavy industry, with Detroit, Michigan, serving as the center of the American automotive industry; the Great Plains are known as the "breadbasket" of America for their tremendous agricultural output; the intermountain region serves as a mining hub and natural gas resource; the Pacific Northwest for fish and timber, while Texas is largely associated with the oil industry; the Southeast is a major hub for both medical research and the textiles industry. Several countries continue to link their currency to the dollar or even use it as a currency (such as Ecuador), although this practice has subsided since the collapse of the Bretton Woods system. Many markets are also quoted in dollars, such as those of oil and gold. The dollar is also the predominant reserve currency in the world, and more than half of global reserves are in dollars. The largest trading partner of the United States is Canada (19%), followed by China (12%), Mexico (11%), and Japan (8%). More than 50% of total trade is with these four countries. In 2003, the United States was ranked as the third most visited tourist destination in the world; its 40,400,000 visitors ranked behind France's 75,000,000 and Spain's 52,500,000. Labor unions have existed since the 19th century, and grew large and powerful from the 1930s to the 1950s. See Labor history of the United States. Since 1970 they have shrunk in the private sector and now cover fewer than 8% of the workers. However union membership has grown rapidly in the public sector, especially among teachers, nurses, police, postal workers, and municipal clerks. There have been few strikes in recent years. The United States' imports exceed exports by 80%, leading to an annual trade deficit of $700,000,000,000, or 6% of gross domestic product. It is the largest debtor nation in the world, with total gross foreign debt of over $13,000,000,000,000 (2005 estimate); and it absorbs more than 50% of global savings annually. Since the 1980s, the U.S. has increased the use of neoliberal economic policies that reduce government intervention and reduce the size of the welfare state, backing away from the more interventionist Keynsian economic policies that had been in favor since the Great Depression. As a result, the United States provides fewer government-delivered social welfare services than most industrialized nations, choosing instead to keep its tax burden lower and relying more heavily on the free market and private charities. Sixteen states and the District of Columbia have minimum wages higher than the national level ($5.15 per-hour), including the highest, Washington State at $7.35. Twenty-six states are the same as the federal level; two--Ohio and Kansas--are below; and six do not have state laws. America's wealth is relatively highly concentrated. The average C.E.O. earns 500 times the typical amount a worker grosses, this is up from 25 times in the late 1970s. In terms of wealth the top 1% of Americans own 40% of all assets and 50.1% of the country's income goes to the top twenty percent of households. Average wages for the majority of employees have been largely stagnating since the 1970s. America's poverty line defined as a family of four earning less than $19,157 is at 12.7% of the general population. Approximately one out of every five children in the United States grows up below the official poverty line. Among racial groups; African Americans have the lowest median income while Asians had the highest. Regionally, the southern states had the lowest median incomes while the West Coast and New England had the highest. The current Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan remarked that the U.S.’s growing income inequality since the 1970s is, "not the type of thing which a democratic society - a capitalist democratic society - can really accept without addressing."[http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/0614/p01s03-usec.html?s=itm] However, Greenspan also noted, "...you can look at the system and say it's got a lot of problems to it, and sure it does. It always has. But you can't get around the fact that this is the most extraordinarily successful economy in history."

Transportation

Alan Greenspan ]] Because the United States is a relatively young nation, most of the development of U.S. cities has taken place since the invention of the automobile. To link its vast territory, the United States built a network of high-capacity, high-speed highways, of which the most important element is the Interstate Highway system, commissioned in the 1950s by President Dwight D. Eisenhower and modeled after the German Autobahn. The United States also has a transcontinental rail system, which is used for moving freight across the lower forty-eight states. Passenger rail service is provided by Amtrak, which serves forty-six of the lower forty-eight states. Many cities in the United States have extensive mass-transit systems. New York City operates one of the world's largest and most heavily used subway systems. The regional rail and bus networks that extend into Long Island, New Jersey, Upstate New York, and Connecticut are among the most heavily used in the world. Air travel is often preferred for destinations over 300 miles (500 kilometers) away. In terms of passengers, seventeen of the world's thirty busiest airports in 2004 were in the U.S., including the world's busiest, Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport; in terms of cargo, in the same year, twelve of the world's thirty busiest airports were in the U.S., including the world's busiest, Memphis International Airport. There are several major seaports in the United States; the three busiest are the Port of Los Angeles, California; the Port of Long Beach, California; and the Port of New York and New Jersey. Others include Houston, Texas; Charleston, South Carolina; Savannah, Georgia; Miami, Florida; Portland, Oregon; San Francisco, California; Boston, Massachusetts; Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; and Seattle, Washington; plus, outside the contiguous forty-eight states, Anchorage, Alaska, and Honolulu, Hawaii.

Society

Demographics

Hawaii The mean center of the U.S. population continues to drift farther west and south. The fastest growing region is the western United States followed by the southern portion. According to Census 2000, the states that saw the greatest increases from 1990 were: Nevada (66.3%), Arizona (40%), Colorado (30.6%), Utah (29.6%), Idaho (28.5%), Georgia (26.4%), Florida (23.5%), Texas (22.8%), North Carolina (21.4%), and Washington (21.1%). [http://www.census.gov/population/cen2000/phc-t2/tab03.pdf]

Ethnicity and race

:Main article: Racial demographics of the United States The United States is a very racially diverse country. According to the 2000 census, it has 31 ethnic groups with at least one million members each, and numerous others represented in smaller amounts. The majority of Americans descend from white European immigrants who arrived at the establishment of the first colonies (most after Reconstruction). This majority--69.1% in 2000--decreases each year, and is expected to become a plurality within a few decades. The most frequently stated European ancestries are German (15.2%), Irish (10.8%), English (8.7%), Italian (5.6%) and Scandinavian (3.7%). Many immigrants also hail from Slavic countries such as Poland and Russia. Other significant immigrant populations came from eastern and southern Europe and French Canada. Russia Hispanics from Mexico and South and Central America are the largest minority group in the country, comprising 12.5% of the population (2000 census). People of Mexican descent made up 7.3% of the population in the 2000 census, and this proportion is expected to increase significantly in the coming decades. About 12.3% (2000 census) of the American people are African Americans (Blacks). African Americans are spread throughout the country, but their presence is largest in the South. Asian Americans--including Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders--are a third significant minority (3.7% of the population in 2000). Most Asian Americans are concentrated on the West Coast and Hawaii. The largest groups are immigrants or descendants of emigrants from the Philippines, China, India, Vietnam, South Korea, and Japan. Indigenous peoples in the United States, such as American Indians and Inuit, make up 0.9% of the population (2000 census). About 35% live on Indian reservations.

Religion

Polls estimate that just under 80 percent of Americans are Christians of various denominations. The other 20 percent comprises other religions such as Hinduism, Judaism, Islam, and Buddhism, other various faiths, and those without a specific religion. The United States is noteworthy among developed nations for its relatively high level of religiosity. According to a 2004 Gallup poll, about 44% of Americans attend a religious service at least once a week. However, this rate is not uniform across the country; attendance is more common in the Bible Belt—composed largely of Southern and Midwestern states—than in the Northeast and West Coast. In the Southern states, Baptists are the largest group, followed by Methodists; Roman Catholics are dominant in the Northeast and in large parts of the Midwest due to their being settled by descendants of Catholic immigrants from Europe (such as Germany, Ireland, Italy, and Poland) or other parts of North America (mainly Quebec and Puerto Rico). The rest of the country for the most part has a complex mixture of various Christian groups.

Education

West Coast's home at Monticello and the University of Virginia (library building shown above, and designed by Jefferson), the only collegiate campus on the list. Both sites are located in Charlottesville, Virginia.]] In the United States, education is a state, not federal, responsibility, and the laws and standards vary considerably. However, the federal government, through the Department of Education, is involved with funding of some programs and exerts some influence through its ability to control funding. In most states, all students must attend mandatory schooling starting with kindergarten, which children normally enter at age 5, and following through 12th grade, which is normally completed at age 18

Objectivist philosophy

Objectivism is a philosophical system developed by Russian-born American philosopher and author Ayn Rand. It encompasses positions in metaphysics, epistemology, ethics, politics, and aesthetics. Objectivism holds that there is a mind-independent reality, that individual human beings are in contact with this reality through sensory perception, that they gain knowledge by processing the data of perception using the method of reason or "non-contradictory identification," that the proper moral purpose of one's life is the pursuit of one's own happiness, and that the only moral social system is laissez-faire capitalism. The different branches of the philosophy, Rand claims, all hierarchically link back to its metaphysics and epistemology, and are found by establishing the logical results of its position in those two. Rand also characterizes Objectivism as a philosophy "for living on earth," grounded in reality and aimed at facilitating knowledge of the natural world and harmonious, mutually beneficial interactions between human beings. Rand wrote:
My philosophy, in essence, is the concept 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. 
Objectivism derives its name from its conception of knowledge and values as "objective," rather than as "intrinsic" or "subjective." According to Rand, neither concepts nor values are "intrinsic" to external reality, nor are they merel