To Overthrow the World: The Rise and Fall and Rise of Communism

by Sean McMeekin

Overview

From an award-winning historian, a new global history of Communism 

When the USSR collapsed in 1991, the world was certain that Communism was dead. Today, three decades later, it is clear that it was not. While Russia may no longer be Communist, Communism and sympathy for Communist ideas have proliferated across the globe. 
 
In To Overthrow the World, Sean McMeekin investigates the evolution of Communism from a seductive ideal of a classless society into the ruling doctrine of tyrannical regimes. Tracing Communism’s ascent from theory to practice, McMeekin ranges from Karl Marx’s writings to the rise and fall of the USSR under Stalin to Mao’s rise to power in China to the acceleration of Communist or Communist-inspired policies around the world in the twenty-first century. McMeekin argues, however, that despite the endurance of Communism, it remains deeply unpopular as a political form. Where it has arisen, it has always arisen by force. 
 
Blending historical narrative with cutting-edge scholarship, To Overthrow the World revolutionizes our understanding of the evolution of Communism—an idea that seemingly cannot die. 

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781541601963
Publisher:	Basic Books
Publication date:	09/10/2024
Pages:	544
Product dimensions:	6.20(w) x 9.00(h) x 1.80(d)

About the Author

Sean McMeekin is a professor of history at Bard College. The award-winning author of several books, including Stalin’s War, The Russian Revolution, July 1914, and The Ottoman Endgame, McMeekin lives in Clermont, New York. 

Editorial Reviews

Winner of the Intercollegiate Studies Institute's 2025 Conservative Book of the Year Award

A Catholic World Report Best Book of 2024

“The story of communism is more accurately read as a history of violence than as a history of ideas. Mr. McMeekin bears this out vividly, drawing on a deep well of knowledge about a story of human depravity that deserves to be told. It is well worth reading.”—Wall Street Journal

“With vivid prose, McMeekin punctures many myths of communism… This is history as a warning.”—Washington Examiner

"The best short history of communism I know."—Gary Saul Morson, The New Criterion

“Sean McMeekin, one of the most prolific historians of this generation… shines a harsh light on the realities of communism.”—Chronicles Magazine

“An entertaining and readable summary.”—Washington Free Beacon

"To Overthrow the World is the kind of book that should be on everyone’s bookshelf. You will turn to it again and again."—American Spectator

“A wonderful read by an engaging writer with a deep knowledge of the relevant history.”—Law & Liberty

"With great learning and in lively prose… This is a lesson that must be passed on to new generations if civilized liberty is to endure."—Catholic World Report

“A very readable narrative that moves at a rapid pace.”—Irish Times

“Vividly told and illuminated by well-chosen detail… [it] should appeal to the general reader.”—National Review

"A wide-ranging examination of how the concept of communism was a key driver of the conflicts of the 20th century—and remains a significant force."—Kirkus

“Following the collapse of the Soviet Union, many in the West were lulled into a sense of complacency. Fast forward to today, and the United States is locked in yet another struggle with a communist superpower, even as our liberal system is under attack at home. In his thoroughly researched but readable and entertaining new book, historian Sean McMeekin charts the evolution of communism from Karl Marx to Tiananmen Square massacre while explaining how this political system endured through the trials and tribulations of the twentieth century. Students, scholars, and policymakers will all benefit from the lessons contained in this bold and lively book.”—Walter Russell Mead, author of The Arc of a Covenant

“McMeekin is a gifted writer who conveys his ideas via a readable and engaging narrative. He is also an accomplished historian.”—Washington Independent Review of Books

“This vivid history of communism, from the day Marx penned The Communist Manifesto in 1848 to the present, contains valuable insights, including that of Bakunin, the Russian anarchist who immediately pointed out the crippling contradiction of Marxism—it merely substitutes one power-hungry form of government for another. McMeekin follows this skeptical thread through the Soviet and Chinese experiences, from Lenin and Stalin to Mao and Xi, detailing the economic weakness and political madness of communist regimes in Europe and Asia that have been kept afloat over the decades as much by Western gullibility and indulgence as by their own ruthless, incompetent managers.”—Geoffrey Wawro, author of The Vietnam War

“An essential read. McMeekin is one of the few historians who understands the history of communism from the ground up. He has written a powerful and urgent book, revealing communism in all its ugly detail, and showing how its pernicious influence still lingers on into the twenty-first century.”—Nick Lloyd, author of The Western Front

“With amazing scholarship, McMeekin tells the story of the rise and fall of communism in To Overthrow the World. The utopian promises of communism have always led to dictatorship, bloody repression, and war. McMeekin punctures one myth after another, including the legend that the Soviets won World War II without much help from the West. Many people today are too young to remember the Cold War, and it is vital that they learn the facts about communism found in To Overthrow the World.”—David Gordon, senior fellow, Ludwig von Mises Institute

“In To Overthrow the World, McMeekin describes in telling detail how no communist regime in history has gained power through the vote or public approval, and how its social and economic policies invariably bring about mass repression and poverty. No other book to my knowledge has demonstrated so damningly the endemic falsity of the ideology’s doctrines, together with the appalling consequences of the social experiment in a worldwide setting.”—Nikolai Tolstoy, historian

From the Publisher

2024-05-10
A wide-ranging examination of how the concept of communism was a key driver of the conflicts of the 20th century—and remains a significant force.

McMeekin, author of such acclaimed books as Stalin’s War, July 1914, and The Ottoman Endgame, traces the arc of communism through early Marxist theory to the rise of the Soviet Union, followed by China and a series of smaller entities. The ideological path ran from utopian idealism to state control and then totalitarianism, with the most awful expression being the bloody Year Zero experiment in Cambodia, in which communism “was reduced to its essentials, as a negation of everything existing, a war of the young on the old, a social leveling of society down to equality in abject poverty and misery.” McMeekin identifies the late 1970s as the high-water mark, but the rot of corruption and stagnation had set in, and the collapse was remarkably quick. The author is unquestionably knowledgeable about his subject, but much of this information has been covered in such books as Richard Pipes’ Communism and Archie Brown’s The Rise and Fall of Communism, among numerous others. McMeekin provides more focused discussions of individual nations—especially China—that have abandoned the central tenets while retaining the mechanisms of state control. He asserts that these countries are still communist, but he is selective with the facts to fit his argument. In the closing pages, he notes the rise of authoritarian thinking in democratic countries, with “modern-day thought commissars.” “Far from dead,” he writes, “Communism as a governing template seems only to be getting started,” which feels like a definitional sleight of hand. Perhaps the author will explore this subject further in future work, but the current book is a look backward down a well-traveled road.

McMeekin assembles an impressive body of research but struggles to find a new perspective.

Kirkus Reviews