Atlas Shrugged and American Politics Today

I was out on a date about a month ago when I first heard of it: "Atlas what?". "Atlas Shrugged, by Ayn Rand. It's a book that basically questions the duty of the strong to help the weak".

I am no scholar, and I do live in Brazil, but it is not common for me not even to have heard about famous books. So I decided to investigate. And that is one of the interesting things about Atlas Shrugged: while the author has an institute named after her and the book was voted one of the most influential in the USA, it is almost unheard of (outside academia) elsewhere. It is so hard to come by in Portuguese, for example, that a copy of the 1987 translation recently sold for over 130 dollars on the Brazilian equivalent of Ebay. I haven't been able to explain this yet. Perhaps the novel is just too American, or just too long.

The other mystery surrounding Atlas Shrugged is why it's suddenly regaining popularity: a movie is in the making, the book is said to have become a hit with CEOs and they're even republishing it in Portuguese. What does this say about the mood of America? That's straightforward. Recession is upon us, and so people are choosing to shield themselves against hard times rather than help the rest of the world. The economic center is shifting to the right, right?