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Heaven on Earth: The Rise and Fall of Socialism
by Joshua MuravchikProduct Overview
Socialism was man's most ambitious attempt to supplant religion with
a doctrine claiming to be rational and "scientific." In the century
following its birth in the French Revolution, socialism was propounded
by writers and organizers until it became the fastest-growing idea in
Europe. Then Lenin showed that it could be spread better by the sword
than by the word, and soon it spanned the globe. No other political
idea, indeed no religion, ever traveled so far so fast.
The search for the Promised Land took socialists in diverse directions:
revolution, communes and kibbutzim, social democracy, communism,
fascism, Third Worldism. But none of these paths led to the prophesied
utopia. Nowhere did socialists succeed in creating societies of easy
abundance or in midwifing the birth of a "New Man," as their theory
promised. Some socialist governments abandoned their grandiose goals and
satisfied themselves with making slight modifications to capitalism,
while others plowed ahead doggedly, often inducing staggering human
catastrophes. Then, after two hundred years of wishful thinking and
fitful governance, socialism suddenly imploded in the 1990s in a fin du
siecle drama of falling walls, collapsing regimes and frantic revisions
of doctrine.
In Heaven on Earth, Joshua Muravchik traces this fiery trajectory
through portraits of the thinkers and leaders who developed the theory
of socialism, led it to power and presided over its collapse. We see
such dreamers and doers as the French revolutionary Gracchus Babeuf
whose "Conspiracy of Equals" was the first to try to outlaw private
property; Robert Owen, who hoped to plant a model socialist utopia in
the United States; Friedrich Engels, who created the cult of Karl Marx
and "scientific" socialism; Benito Mussolini, self-proclaimed socialist
heretic and inventor of fascism; Clement Attlee, who rejected the
fanatics and set out to build socialism democratically in Britain;
Julius Nyerere, who merged social democracy and communism in the hope of
making Tanzania a model for the developing world; and Mikhail Gorbachev,
Deng Xiaoping and Tony Blair, who became socialism's inadvertent
undertakers.
About the Author
Joshua
Muravchik
Joshua Muravchik studies the United Nations, neoconservatism, the history of socialism and communism, the Arab-Israeli conflict, and global democracy, terrorism, and the Bush Doctrine.
Education
Ph.D., international relations, Georgetown
University
B.A., City College of New York
Professional Experience
- Member, State Department’s Advisory Committee on Democracy Promotion, 2007-present
- Adjunct professor, Institute of World Politics, 1992-present
- Member, Maryland State Advisory Committee of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, 1985-1997
- Member, Commission on Broadcasting to the People's Republic of China, 1992
- Adjunct scholar, Washington Institute on Near East Policy, 1986-present
- Executive director, Coalition for a Democratic Majority, 1977-1979
- Editorial board member, World Affairs and Journal of Democracy
List Price: $17.95
Our Price: $14.00
You Save: $3.95 (22%)
Paperback: 391 pages
Publisher: Encounter Books, November 2003
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1893554783
ISBN-13: 978-1893554788
Dimensions: 8.4 x 6 x 1.2 inches
Weight: 1.6 pounds
Loving Truth Books & Gifts Review
This is a fantastic work, well documented and thorough. The author takes
you on a whirlwind tour of the history of Socialism and its affects on our
world. I was astonished to learn about the failed socialist experiments in
both Great Britain and the US. I NEVER came across this in my public
education in America!
Anyone who is a serious student of history and wants to unearth religious
worldviews that are harming the welfare of nations and generations of people
MUST read this book.
Review By: Angela Zaev
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