Although many view socialism through the rigid lens of Soviet orthodoxy, it has always

been a work in progress and an evolving and adaptable ideology on a global scale,
says Harvard Business School Marvin Bower Associate Professor Jeremy Friedman.

In his new book, Ripe for Revolution: Building Socialism in the Third World, Friedman
traces the history of socialism over a 40-year period in five countries: Indonesia, Chile,
Tanzania, Angola, and Iran. These states didn’t strictly follow the path of the Soviet
bloc, but instead created new socialist models through their own trial and error, and in
doing so, demonstrated that socialism can be pragmatic and variable, Friedman writes.

“To understand how socialism changes and where it is today, and to grasp its evolution
and potential horizons, we must do more than read manifestos,” Friedman says. “We
must attend to history.”

In this excerpt from Ripe for Revolution, Friedman discusses how conventional thinking
about socialism has evolved since the Cold War.