Atlas Shrugged

[Amaris]

I don't think public libraries carry any Marx or Mao, nor physical bookstores. That's why left-wing parties usually set up shop as, literally, a shop, for books and periodicals that are not freely available due to "market forces." Mail order has been prone to interference/surveillance by the USPS at various times. The worst was the decades in the antebellum South of course, which censored abolitionist literature.

Happily for the purity of American morals, Ayn Rand is pretty much always available. Often, like 1984, she's pushed as a "classic" in sections devoted to improving YA minds. (For much the same reasons.) The rape scene in The Fountainhead I'm sure has been very educational to less sophisticated teens for years now.

Now I hate to be hoity-toity, but...The Jungle? Sinclair observed he aimed for America's heart and hit its stomach. Being where the national soul resides, The Jungle is a YA classic too. (It is well known the concerned adults, teachers and librarians who make up the YA classic reading lists do insist on certain works aimed at improving the morals.) The Jungle makes a case for government banning poisonous foods being sold for profit. This kind of socialism is innocuous enough yet allows the listmakers to congratulate themselves on their daring.

No, I think what you need to read as a genuine counterpoise to Rand's utopian thriller is Jack London's dystopian thriller, The Iron Heel. After reading the chapter on the Chicago Commune you could follow up by reading Heinlein's The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, especially the sequence describing the peacekeeper assault on Luna City.

Just a point, but our local library, which is tiny, carries both Marx, and Mao. Unless you're being sarcastic, then just ignore me.

 

[Set Harth]

http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/portable-karl-marx-karl-marx/1001188049

Complete with store locator for in-store pickup.

 

[stj]

Just a point, but our local library, which is tiny, carries both Marx, and Mao. Unless you're being sarcastic, then just ignore me.

No, not sarcastic, this is really surprising.

I have never seen a public library (and over the years I've looked into public libraries in Morgantown, Charleston, Huntington [an interlibrary system serving a number of counties!]) Pikeville KY, which carried Marx or Mao. Most of them don't even carry a biography of Marx, or Lenin. Most will carry biographies of Stalin and Mao, hack jobs or scholastically disreputable ones, though. Libraries in WV are fanatical about purging the shelves of unread or nearly unread books (I think it comes from a policy laid down by the state library commission and affects funding.) Maybe that has something to do with the death.

I once saw a Barnes & Noble in Philadelphia, and I believe that would have had Marx and Mao, judging from the fact they had progressive magazines. (Brentano's didn't have any if I remember correctly.) Books-A-Million and Borders don't, at least not the ones in Huntington and Charleston. Waldenbooks is defunct here, if not everywhere, but they didn't either.

University bookstores and college libraries are a different proposition of course.

 

[Nerys Myk]

The county library in my rural, red state county has Marx. The bookstores I've worked in had books by Marx, though that was in the workers paradise that is the San Francisco Bay Area.

 

[Gov Kodos]

Then you have some crappy bookstores and libraries in your area, stj. There was never any problem finding those works in stores and libraries around home.

 

[Greg Cox]

Hmm. I'll have to go check my local library tomorrow, for curiosity's sake.

Granted, I'm not sure I actually read Marx until I was in college, but I'd like to think it was available in Seattle when I was growing up. And I'm reasonably sure it was easy to find in the West Village in NYC later on . . . .

 

[Amaris]

Just a point, but our local library, which is tiny, carries both Marx, and Mao. Unless you're being sarcastic, then just ignore me.

No, not sarcastic, this is really surprising.

I have never seen a public library (and over the years I've looked into public libraries in Morgantown, Charleston, Huntington [an interlibrary system serving a number of counties!]) Pikeville KY, which carried Marx or Mao. Most of them don't even carry a biography of Marx, or Lenin. Most will carry biographies of Stalin and Mao, hack jobs or scholastically disreputable ones, though. Libraries in WV are fanatical about purging the shelves of unread or nearly unread books (I think it comes from a policy laid down by the state library commission and affects funding.) Maybe that has something to do with the death.

I once saw a Barnes & Noble in Philadelphia, and I believe that would have had Marx and Mao, judging from the fact they had progressive magazines. (Brentano's didn't have any if I remember correctly.) Books-A-Million and Borders don't, at least not the ones in Huntington and Charleston. Waldenbooks is defunct here, if not everywhere, but they didn't either.

University bookstores and college libraries are a different proposition of course.

That's odd. I could call any of the three libraries across three towns in a 20 mile radius, and they will have them on the shelves. We have one small book store that opened a few months ago, and I would bet you they have Marx in their inventory, and I live in southern Ohio.

 

[Gov Kodos]

Just a point, but our local library, which is tiny, carries both Marx, and Mao. Unless you're being sarcastic, then just ignore me.

No, not sarcastic, this is really surprising.

I have never seen a public library (and over the years I've looked into public libraries in Morgantown, Charleston, Huntington [an interlibrary system serving a number of counties!]) Pikeville KY, which carried Marx or Mao. Most of them don't even carry a biography of Marx, or Lenin. Most will carry biographies of Stalin and Mao, hack jobs or scholastically disreputable ones, though. Libraries in WV are fanatical about purging the shelves of unread or nearly unread books (I think it comes from a policy laid down by the state library commission and affects funding.) Maybe that has something to do with the death.

I once saw a Barnes & Noble in Philadelphia, and I believe that would have had Marx and Mao, judging from the fact they had progressive magazines. (Brentano's didn't have any if I remember correctly.) Books-A-Million and Borders don't, at least not the ones in Huntington and Charleston. Waldenbooks is defunct here, if not everywhere, but they didn't either.

University bookstores and college libraries are a different proposition of course.

That's odd. I could call any of the three libraries across three towns in a 20 mile radius, and they will have them on the shelves. We have one small book store that opened a few months ago, and I would bet you they have Marx in their inventory, and I live in southern Ohio.

The bookstore downtown in Seoul has Marx in Korean, English, French and German.

 

[Amaris]

No, not sarcastic, this is really surprising.

I have never seen a public library (and over the years I've looked into public libraries in Morgantown, Charleston, Huntington [an interlibrary system serving a number of counties!]) Pikeville KY, which carried Marx or Mao. Most of them don't even carry a biography of Marx, or Lenin. Most will carry biographies of Stalin and Mao, hack jobs or scholastically disreputable ones, though. Libraries in WV are fanatical about purging the shelves of unread or nearly unread books (I think it comes from a policy laid down by the state library commission and affects funding.) Maybe that has something to do with the death.

I once saw a Barnes & Noble in Philadelphia, and I believe that would have had Marx and Mao, judging from the fact they had progressive magazines. (Brentano's didn't have any if I remember correctly.) Books-A-Million and Borders don't, at least not the ones in Huntington and Charleston. Waldenbooks is defunct here, if not everywhere, but they didn't either.

University bookstores and college libraries are a different proposition of course.

That's odd. I could call any of the three libraries across three towns in a 20 mile radius, and they will have them on the shelves. We have one small book store that opened a few months ago, and I would bet you they have Marx in their inventory, and I live in southern Ohio.

The bookstore downtown in Seoul has Marx in Korean, English, French and German.

Exactly. You can find it anywhere, which is why I thought stj was being sarcastic. I mean, if our little town, which is conservative as hell, carries such books, almost everyone else should.

 

[sidious618]

My local Barnes and Noble has plenty of Marx, Mao etc. but then again I am in godless New York!

 

[Zaku]

My local library has never heard of Ayn Rand.

'Atlas Shrugged' here is divided in three volumes

'La rivolta di Atlante - il tema'

'La rivolta di Atlante - L'uomo che apparteneva alla terra'

'La rivolta di Atlante - L'Atlantide'

You can order them on online bookstores (like Amazon.it), but none have them in stock. Last edition was published in 2007.

It's quite fun that a book so important and controversial for the American culture is virtually unknow outside U.S. borders...

 

[stj]

Then you have some crappy bookstores and libraries in your area, stj. There was never any problem finding those works in stores and libraries around home.

This may be true. But then, I have to drive eighty miles to get to a decent bookstore. (Where, by local standards, Books-A-Million is a bastion of high culture.)

 

[Alidar Jarok]

No, not sarcastic, this is really surprising.

See where it is.

 

[Professor Zoom]

Forget the film. But, you should read the book before it's banned.

Banned by who? Its been out for 55 years. Don't see it going away any time soon.

It could be banned, perhaps, by a government that absolutely DESPISES individual achievement and is completely convinced that nothing good can ever be accomplished without government's "help". Now, where oh where would we find such a government...

The Soviet Union?

 

[JoeZhang]

Star Wars

 

[Zaku]

Forget the film. But, you should read the book before it's banned.

Banned by who? Its been out for 55 years. Don't see it going away any time soon.

It could be banned, perhaps, by a government that absolutely DESPISES individual achievement and is completely convinced that nothing good can ever be accomplished without government's "help". Now, where oh where would we find such a government...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_books_banned_by_governments

Basically, the only books banned in the U.S. history are those with "obscene" material.

The Americans are more afraid of sex than politics.

 

[Robert D. Robot]

Forget the film. But, you should read the book before it's banned.

Banned by who? Its been out for 55 years. Don't see it going away any time soon.

It could be banned, perhaps, by a government that absolutely DESPISES individual achievement and is completely convinced that nothing good can ever be accomplished without government's "help". Now, where oh where would we find such a government...

"Where oh where?...." Starting in about 5 minutes I can fine-tune my FM dial and hear scary tales about that horrific place, but I'll then need to change the station after about 5 more minutes because that is all I can stomach of Glenn Beck's rants and harebrained looniness.....

 

[Robert D. Robot]

....I have never seen a public library (and over the years I've looked into public libraries in Morgantown, Charleston, Huntington [an interlibrary system serving a number of counties!]) Pikeville KY, which carried Marx or Mao....

I just confirmed online that works by those men are indeed in our local libraries, supporting what other posters have already said. If what you say is true, then this reflects poorly on your region of the country.

 

[Robert D. Robot]

....The Americans are more afraid of sex than politics.

Many people do tend to fear what they do not understand!

.... I gotta go. Government drones are flying over the house again......

 

[iguana_tonante]

Banned by who? Its been out for 55 years. Don't see it going away any time soon.

It could be banned, perhaps, by a government that absolutely DESPISES individual achievement and is completely convinced that nothing good can ever be accomplished without government's "help". Now, where oh where would we find such a government...

Not here.

Nor anywhere in the world outside his head.

My local library has never heard of Ayn Rand.

'Atlas Shrugged' here is divided in three volumes

'La rivolta di Atlante - il tema'

'La rivolta di Atlante - L'uomo che apparteneva alla terra'

'La rivolta di Atlante - L'Atlantide'

You can order them on online bookstores (like Amazon.it), but none have them in stock. Last edition was published in 2007.

It's quite fun that a book so important and controversial for the American culture is virtually unknow outside U.S. borders...

Yeah, Ayn Rand is almost completely unheard of in Italy. With good reason: when you have Bruno Vespa's, you don't need more plutocratic apologetic.

(Another Italian! Ciao Zaku! )