Socialism Unbound ─ Principles, Practices, and Prospects

Socialism Unbound by Stephen Eric Bronner was widely acclaimed when it first appeared in 1990. This second revised edition brings it up to date. Written in a clear prose, and an uncompromising manner, it offers new critical reflections on the tradition of working class politics and its salience for the new millennium. Chronological in structure, broad in scope, its chapters are devoted to the themes associated with the most important figures of the labor movement: Marx & Engels, Karl Kautsky, Eduard Bernstein, Lenin, and Rosa Luxemburg. Each chapter speaks to the contributions and limits of past practices in light of recent political trends. Treating socialism as an ethic, while discarding outworn teleological claims, the conclusion squarely confronts a host of issues including the relation between class and social movements, institutional accountability and participation, revolution and reform, economic justice and market imperatives, internationalism and identity. This second edition of what has been called a classic text indeed articulates the potential contributions of socialist theory for developing a genuinely progressive politics no less than the organizational and ideological challenges it must face in the modern era.

Stephen Eric Bronner is Distinguished Professor of Political Science and director of civic diplomacy and human rights at the Institute for World Challenges, Rutgers University. Chair of the executive committee at U.S. Academics for Peace and senior editor of the internet journal Logos, he has published more than twenty-five books, including Critical Theory: A Very Short Introduction; Camus: Portrait of a Moralist; Peace Out of Reach: Middle Eastern Travels and the Search for Reconciliation; and Reclaiming the Enlightenment: Toward a Politics of Radical Engagement. He received the Michael A. Harrington Prize for Moments of Decision: Political History and the Crises of Radicalism.

Dick Howard is distinguished professor of philosophy at the State University of New York, Stony Brook. He is the author of The Primacy of the Political: A History of Political Thought from the Greeks to the French and American Revolutions and The Specter of Democracy: What Marx and Marxists Haven't Understood and Why.