Product Description

Equality 7-2521 is a man apart. Since The Great Rebirth it has been a crime in his world to think or act as an individual. Even love is forbidden. Yet since his childhood in the Home of the Infants, Equality 7-2521 has felt that he is different. When he is sent by The Council of Vocations to work as a road sweeper, he stumbles upon a link to the old world that gives him the spur to break free. First published in England in 1938, Ayn Rand’s short dystopian novel crystalises the ideas of individualism and competition that would make her name.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #68847 in Books
• Published on: 2008-09-04
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 112 pages

About the Author
Ayn Rand was a Russian-born American novelist and philosopher. She was an uncompromising advocate of rational individualism, and vociferously opposed socialism. Rand's unique philosophy, Objectivism, has gained a worldwide audience. Anthem was her second novel. She died in 1982.

Customer Reviews

Short and to the point
I couldn't find the copy that I have here on amazon, so I am writing the review on this one. My copy is the "centennial edition", and besides the actual book (which is less than 100 pages), it contains an introduction by Leonard Peikoff, and a facsimile of the original English edition, with Ayn Rand's editorial changes for the American edition written on each page with her own hand. In the back of the book there is also a short biography and summaries of her philosophy and other books. This book differs in style from her other ones, but the content is basically the same, and the message is loud and clear. Her sensible and noble philosophy is simple and fundamental, and anyone who reads this will know exactly what she is trying to say in all of her books. The highest good is the individual who thinks and acts for himself, and all roads of collectivism lead to mental (and most likely physical) slavery. This book is just too short to earn five stars, but Ayn Rand is someone every thinking person should read.

Not Compelling
This book is neither compelling, nor interesting. It is a short story designed to make a case for Rand's egoistic philosophy, but it reads more like propaganda than philosophical fiction. A better representation of her philosophy can be found in her longer works, or perhaps through reading her wikipedia article.

The story is science fiction after a fashion - a world that has forgotten all its technology after descending into a new dark age with the death of individualism, seeks to prevent any individuality in the people that now occupy it. Others have written this story much better - perhaps missing the egoist angle - but that is really Rand's import into the story in any case.

This storyline is better carried out in H M Hoover's "This Time of Darkness". That book is the story Rand should have written here.

In her defense, this book was written many years ago, and before much of the later science fiction work we now have - but it is not a work that stands the test of time, unfortunately.

Another nail in the coffin of the Communist ideal
Sometime in the future (perhaps?) or in an alternate universe, the human race has (d)evolved to a slave ridden society, ruled by the Councils. Their entire lives are determined by the Councils, they have no names and no identities (each refers to himself as "We") and technology is a thing of the past, along with science and even literature. Doomed to work for the good of their fellows, and not expected to live much longer than 40. Echoes of 1984 and Brave New World, with Ayn Rand's distinctive philosophy allowing one man to realise that there is more to the world than slavery. He escapes into the Forest along with his future mate and they eventually find the remnants of (presumably our) civilisation. And live happily every after...

A very short book, concisely written, exploring Rand's vision of the Individual and the terrible catastrophe that the Communist style world can cause to a society. I have since read "The Fountainhead" which is even better...