What are the motifs in The Virtue of Selfishness by Ayn Rand?

Rand's ethical theory of Objectivism demands that individuals act on their own rational self-interests. This is the principle of the virtue of selfishness. Selfishness is only a virtue if it is conceived by a rational process with the value of one's own life at its core. Throughout The Virtue of Selfishness,Rand and Branden show how traditional theories of ethics uphold the principle of altruism, the principle of giving of oneself to another. In this book, altruism is made synonymous to self-sacrifice.