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Line 244: + + − + − − # The novel depicts the first use of [[Diesel]]-electric [[locomotive]]s in [[railroad]]ing. This is the clue that the Internet Movie Database mentions.<ref name=imdb/> − # Railroads are the primary mode of overland transport. − # [[Airline]] service is relatively new—and fails miserably during the novel. (Airlines would not displace passenger rail travel until the 1970s, with the formation of the [[National Rail Passenger Corporation]], or "Amtrak.") [[Monoplane]]s seem new, but that might reflect Ayn Rand's lack of command of the English language. − # [[Telephone]] service was well-established in this era, but had not achieved universal penetration. (Or perhaps telephone service has begun to fail.) In one key scene, a low-level foreman complains to Dagny Taggart that most of the men whom she orders him to contact do not have telephone service where they live. − # [[Radio]] was the ubiquitous mass medium of the day. [[Television]] was something new and exotic, and had not yet achieved universal penetration. − # [[Telegraph]]y, being much cheaper than full-duplex long-distance telephony, was still a prominent method of communication. − # The [[United States Navy]] is definitely not the powerful presence on the high seas that it is today, or even during [[World War II]]. The combined forces of the Navy are powerless to stop a single [[privateer]] from hijacking every government-ordered relief cargo sent to various "People's States." − # Every nation in the world, except the United States of America, is called "People's State of" whatever. − # The great "strike of the men of the mind" begins with a single engineer at a plant whose new owners abruptly decide to manage it according to the principles, such as they are, set forth in [[The Communist Manifesto]]. − # The government develops a [[weapon of mass destruction]] ("[[Project X]]", "Project Xylophone", "The Thompson Harmonizer"), intended to assert its authority by main force. This weapon is not nuclear, nor chemical, nor biological, but apparently is ultrasonic in nature. − # No such thing as [[gun control]] exists, or if it is attempted, it fails. The spontaneous strikers who take their inspiration from John Galt's speech set up armed camps in various forest regions. − # The [[State Science Institute]] builds cyclotrons, something that the US government started to build in the 1950s. − − The most likely span of the years of the great strike is 1945-1957, with the novel's major action taking place in the last three years of this period. This novel, then, qualifies as an [[alternate history]] of the United States of America, and of the civilized world. In this version of history, the United States did not intervene in the War of the Reds and the Whites in [[Russia]], and probably did not participate in the [[First World War]]. That War probably ended with every country on earth, except America, becoming a [[Communist]] state. In addition, [[prohibition]] cannot have occurred, because [[alcoholic drinks]] flow freely in many settings. − − Politically, the United States would have been in the hands of the proponents of [[Progressivism]], which was in fact a potent-enough force in the election of 1912 to field a [[Third Party|third party]] candidate for President ([[Theodore Roosevelt]]) who actually out-polled the losing major-party candidate in that race, [[William Howard Taft]]. In this version, perhaps, [[Franklin D. Roosevelt]] runs for [[President of the United States|President]] in 1944, but ''not'' with [[Harry S. Truman]] for a running mate. Instead, he runs with [[Mr. Thompson]], who is still serving as President when the "looters' system" fails. Ayn Rand said that Truman was her anti-type for Mr. Thompson. If so, the only thing those two would have had in common was their physical appearance. − − [[Tax]]ation during this period consisted primarily of the [[income tax]], which Roosevelt raised to confiscatory (up to 94%) levels during the [[Second World War]]. Many other taxes, some of them completely ''ad hoc'', are applied at one time or another in the course of the novel. − − We may assume that World War II went to completion, that [[Communism]] took hold throughout Western Europe, South America, and elsewhere, and that Mr. Thompson, far from objecting, welcomed the change. One thing that does ''not'' bear mention is the establishment of the Republic of [[Israel]]. In fact, Israel was very close to being a People's State at its inception, the usual community being the ''kibbutz'', which was by definition a collectivistic community. The [[Galt's Gulch|Atlantis]]-like community that John Galt establishes is, if anything, the anti-kibbutz. − − Today a film adaptation exists (see below). The screenwriters elected to set the story in America of 2016. In that scenario: − − # Americans have ''abandoned'' airline travel and once again depend on the railroads to move people and freight. − # Television, including Community Antenna Television ("cable"), is the preferred medium of mass communications. − # The [[Middle East]] has dissolved into continual warfare and cut itself and its oil supplies off from the rest of the world. (What has become of [[Israel]], the film does not say. Equally likely, another "[[Arab Spring]]" has set tribe against tribe.) − # Diesel-electric engines are the preferred type of locomotive, but one scene features a next-generation locomotive capable of "bullet train" speeds. − # The [[United States Navy]] is almost certainly downsized, so that, as in the novel, Ragnar Danneskjold can hijack cargoes with impunity. What sort of vessel he commands, the film does not reveal. − − Everything else in the film is as it was in the novel.
→Time setting
==Time setting==
==Time setting==
: ''Main Article: [[Atlas Shrugged (chronology)]]''
The novel does not state when it is set in time. That is, it gives no years. An earlier (since abandoned) plan for the film adaptation (see below) called for setting it during the middle of the 1920s.<ref name=imdb>"Entry for ''Atlas Shrugged''," Internet Movie Database, accessed April 21, 2009. <http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0480239/></ref>
The novel does not state when it is set in time. That is, it gives no years. An earlier (since abandoned) plan for the film adaptation (see below) called for setting it during the middle of the 1920s.<ref name=imdb>"Entry for ''Atlas Shrugged''," Internet Movie Database, accessed April 21, 2009. <http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0480239/></ref>
The novel provides these clues to deciding what were the most likely years during which the action takes place:
The [[motion picture]] ''[[Atlas Shrugged, Part 1]]'' posits an '''index date''' of September 2, 2016.
==Criticism==
==Criticism==