The quest for evolutionary socialism is neither a conventional political history nor a traditional "historiography of political ideas," but is an examination of past and present interactions between European social democratic politics and socialist political ideas.

Since no study of Bernstein's life and work has appeared since Peter Gay's 1952 study, The dilemma of democratic socialism, Steger's book is a timely response to the need for a new comprehensive biography of the German "Father of Marxist Revisionalism," as it not only incorporates recent academic developments, but also addresses current debates on the "end of socialism," as a result of the collapse of Marxism-Leninism, the fall of the Berlin Wall, and the chronic ailments of European social democracy.