Socialism: Utopian and Scientific is one of the most important books on socialism, first published in 1880 by German-born socialist Friedrich Engels. The work was primarily extracted from a longer polemic work published in 1876. It is still an important source of information on socialism.

Socialism, Utopian and Scientific needs no preface. It ranks with the Communist Manifesto as one of the indispensable books for any one desiring to understand the modern socialist movement. It has been translated into every language where capitalism prevails, and its circulation is more rapid than ever before.

"Socialism, Utopian and Scientific" by Friedrich Engels (translated by Edward B. Aveling). Published by Good Press. Good Press publishes a wide range of titles that encompasses every genre. From well-known classics & literary fiction and non-fiction to forgotten−or yet undiscovered gems−of world literature, we issue the books that need to be read. Each Good Press edition has been meticulously edited and formatted to boost readability for all e-readers and devices. Our goal is to produce eBooks that are user-friendly and accessible to everyone in a high-quality digital format.

This book is an excellent introduction for anyone who wants to understand Marxist theory but does not feel ready to dive headlong into Das Capital. It explains socialist theory clearly and then looks at various ideologies connected with socialism.

2020 Reprint of the 1892 Edition. This short work was intended by Engels to be a primer on Marxian thought and especially on the distinction between utopian socialism and scientific socialism. Engels maintains that it was the latter that Marxism considers itself to embody. The book explains that whereas utopian socialism is idealistic, reflecting the personal opinions of the authors and claims that society can be adapted based on these opinions, scientific socialism derives itself from reality. It focuses on Marx's materialist conception of history, which concludes that communism naturally follows capitalism. Engels begins the book by chronicling the thought of utopian socialists, starting with Saint-Simon. He then proceeds to Fourier and Robert Owen. In Chapter Two, he summarizes dialectics, and then chronicles its evolution from from the ancient Greeks to Hegel. Chapter Three summarizes dialectics in relation to economic and social struggles, essentially echoing the words of Marx. In his biography of Marx, Isaiah Berlin described Engel's book as "the best brief autobiographical appreciation of Marxism by one of its creators" and considered that, "written in Engels's best vein", it "had a decisive influence on both Russian and German Socialism." [Berlin, I. (1963). Karl Marx, His Life and Environment (3rd ed.). Oxford: Oxford University Press. p.221]