Published more than twenty years ago, Stephen Eric Bronner's bold defense of socialism remains a seminal text for our time. Treating socialism as an ethic, reinterpreting its core categories, and critically confronting its early foundations, Bronner's work offers a reinvigorated "class ideal" and a new perspective for progressive politics in the twentieth century.

Socialism Unbound is an extraordinary work of political history that revisits the pivotal figures of the labor movement: Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels, Karl Kautsky, Vladimir Lenin, and Rosa Luxemburg. Examining their contributions as well as their flaws, Bronner shows how critical innovation gave way to dogma. New practical problems have arisen, and this volume engages with the relationship between class and social movements, institutional accountability and democratic participation, economic justice and market imperatives, and internationalism and identity. With a foreword by Dick Howard and a new introduction by the author, Bronner's classic study remains indispensable for scholars and activists alike.

Foreword by Dick Howard
Preface to the New Second Edition
Acknowledgments
1. The Democratic Legacy of Karl Marx and Frederick Engels
2. Karl Kautsky: The Rise and Fall of Orthodox Marxism
3. Eduard Bernstein and the Logic of Revisionism
4. Leninism and Beyond
5. A Bridge to the Present: Rosa Luxemburg and the Underground Tradition
6. Recasting the Project: Prologue for a Critical Theory of Socialism
Notes
Index