Between Dreams and Reality: Essays on Revolution and Socialism

by Kamran Nayeri

In the 1970s, it was believed that a third of humanity lived in countries considered to be socialist. Today, there are no countries considered socialist or claiming to be advancing toward socialism. This book explains this reality through a critique of socialist theories, starting with those of Marx and Engels. The argument is anchored in the study of the Iranian revolution of 1979 and the Cuban revolution of 1959. The book concludes with a revision of Marx and Engels' theory of society and history, historical materialism, based on the knowledge gained in fields such as archaeology, anthropology, biology, and the worldviews of hunter-gatherers, as well as the worldviews of indigenous peoples, utilizing ecological animistic materialism instead of the nineteenth-century materialism.

379 pages, Kindle Edition

Published November 14, 2025