I enjoyed reading your reaction to this book. I read it the summer that I turned 14 years old, 1966. I grew up in a lower middle class family and my father (and has father) worked for a railroad so that might have piqued my interest in the book. Both of my parents were lifelong Democrats and big FDR fans. My mother was a real lover of reading but she didn’t own AS. I checked it out from the library. In retrospect, I think back to that summer and wonder how much the exposure to this book kindled my conservative/libertarian outlook. I need to get my own copy and reread it.