This is a historical book by the German economist and sociologist Werner Sombart. The reader of this work will miss something which he has been accustomed to find in books on Socialism. Professor Sombart has not given us synopses of the theories of St. Simon, Proudhon, Marx, Owen, and others. His work marks the coming of a period in which socialism is to be studied in its evolving form as it progresses in practice and influence, rather than the past theories of socialists. A realistic outlook is the essence of it.