Why did he have to fight his battle, not against his enemies, but against those who needed him most, and his hardest battle against the woman he loved? What is the world’s motor — and the motive power of every man? You will know the answer to these questions when you discover the reason behind the baffling events that play havoc with the lives of the characters in this story.
Tremendous in its scope, this novel presents an astounding panorama of human life — from the productive genius who becomes a worthless playboy — to the great steel industrialist who does not know that he is working for his own destruction — to the philosopher who becomes a pirate — to the composer who gives up his career on the night of his triumph — to the woman who runs a transcontinental railroad — to the lowest track worker in her Terminal tunnels.
This is a mystery story, not about the murder — and rebirth — of man’s spirit. It is a philosophical revolution, told in the form of an action thriller of violent events, a ruthlessly brilliant plot structure and an irresistible suspense. Do you say this is impossible? Well,
is the first of your premises to check.

Who needs philosophy? Ayn Rand's answer: Everyone.
This collection of essays was the last work planned by Ayn Rand before her death in 1982. In it, she summarizes her view of philosophy and deals with a broad spectrum of topics. According to Ayn Rand, the choice we make is not whether to have a philosophy but which one to have: rational, conscious, and therefore practical; or contradictory, unidentified, and ultimately lethal. Written with all the clarity and eloquence that have placed Ayn Rand's objectivist philosophy in the mainstream of American thought, these essays range over such basic issues as education, morality, censorship, and inflation to prove that philosophy is the fundamental force in all our lives.

建筑学专业的洛克先生从大学开始就因为不遵循传统说教而被开掉，而听话的另一位先生顺利的毕业并且找到一份好差事。所有人都不喜欢洛克先生，甚至专栏作家也时不时的老羞辱他，洛克爱着的姑娘——也不出所料的跟了那位听话的好好先生……洛克先生活着就是麻烦不断。 在一次政府建筑项目中，那位他的同学，听话的好好先生居然同意了洛克先生独立自主的设计。如果洛克先生能因此获得荣誉，获得成功，并获得尊敬，由此改变世界对他的看法，那真是美好的生活啊。可洛克先生并为因此获得好运气：公众一如既往的反对混子洛克设计建设的这个项目，政府也因此推翻了这个项目，而两位设计者也无法控告政府，政府是无权被告的。洛克先生又一次显示了他混子本色，他搞了一些炸药把那做了一半的楼给炸成一堆碎瓦片子。他也因此而上了法庭，对于自己的行为，他是这么说的：创造是自己的私事，是天赋的权利，维护创造也是同样的天赋个人的权力……
Howard Roark is an architect whose genius and integrity will not be comprised. He has ideas that work against conventional standards.

Today man's mind is under attack by all the leading schools of philosophy. We are told that we cannot trust our senses, that logic is arbitrary, that concepts have no basis in reality. Ayn Rand opposes that torrent of nihilism, and she provides the alternative in this eloquent presentation of the essential nature--and power--of man's conceptual faculty. She offers a startlingly original solution to the problem that brought about the collapse of modern philosophy: the problem of universals. This brilliantly argued, superbly written work, together with an essay by philosophy professor Leonard Peikoff, is vital reading for all those who seek to discover that human beings can and should live by the guidance of reason.