Like competing political ideologies, socialism has been affected by the crisis of contemporary politics. Established institutions are in disarray; mass parties are in decline; political leaders are mistrusted; environmental dangers overshadow the nation-state; and the internationalization of politics and economics leaves populations unsure who to praise and who to blame for the events which shape their lives. In this original rethinking of the heritage and future of the left, Anthony Butler shows that socialism alone among modern political ideologies has the ability to remake itself to meet these challenges. Analyzing socialism as a 'tranformative politics', he uncovers its characteristic strategy of juxtaposing objective social appraisal to immensely ambitious agents of change. Generating a continuous and continuing tradition, immune to passing fashion, socialism's transformative quality makes it uniquely able to address the dangers of contemporary politics.