418 pages, 8 unnumbered pages of plates : 23 cm

Socialism was man's most ambitious attempt to supplant religion with a doctrine claiming to ground itself in "science." Indeed, no religion ever spread so far so fast. Yet while socialism had established itself as a fact of life by the beginning of the 20th century, it did not create societies of abundance or give birth to "the New Man." Each failure inspired new searches for the path to the promised land: revolution, communes, social democracy, Communism, Fascism, Third World socialism. None worked, and some exacted staggering human tolls. Then, after two hundred years of wishful thinking and fitful governance, socialism suddenly imploded in a fin du siecle drama of falling walls and collapsing regimes. In Heaven on Earth, Joshua Muravchik traces this fiery trajectory through sketches of the thinkers and leaders who developed the theory, 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" were 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

"First edition published in 2002 by Encounter Books"--Title page verso

Includes bibliographical references and index

Conspiracy of equals : Babeuf plots a revolution -- New harmony : Owen conducts an experiment -- Scientific socialism : Engels interprets the oracle -- What is to be done? : Bernstein develops doubt -- Real existing socialism : Lenin seizes power -- Fascism : Mussolini becomes a heretic -- Social democracy : Attlee takes the slow road -- Ujamaa : Nyerere forges a synthesis -- Union card : Gompers and Meany hear a different drummer -- Perestroika and modernization : Deng and Gorbachev repeal communism -- The party of business : Blair redefines social democracy

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