8Hailed by The New York Times as a compelling dystopian look at paranoia from one of the most unique and perceptive writers of our time, this brief, captivating novel offers a cautionary tale. The story unfolds within a society in which all traces of individualism have been eliminated from every aspect of life -- use of the word I is a capital offense. The hero, a rebel who discovers that man's greatest moral duty is the pursuit of his own happiness, embodies the values the author embraced in her personal philosophy of objectivism: reason, ethics, volition, and individualism.
Anthem anticipates the themes Ayn Rand explored in her later masterpieces, The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged. Publisher's Weekly acclaimed it as a diamond in the rough, often dwarfed by the superstar company it keeps with the author's more popular work, but every bit as gripping, daring, and powerful.