The work presents the history of revolutionary thought and the birth of socialism, from the French Revolution through the collaboration of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels to the arrival of Vladimir Lenin at the Finland Station in Saint Petersburg in 1917.

The first spends five of eight chapters on Jules Michelet and then discusses the "Decline of Revolutionary Tradition," referencing Ernest Renan, Hippolyte Taine, and Anatole France.

The first four chapters discuss the "Origins of Socialism" vis-à-vis Babeuf, Saint-Simon, Fourier and Robert Owen, and Enfantin as well as the "American Socialists" Margaret Sanger and Horace Greeley.

The second group of twelve chapters deal mostly with the development of thought in Karl Marx in light of his influences, partnership with Friedrich Engels and opposition from Lassalle and Bakunin.

[3] In 1940, a reviewer writing for Time said: Because it makes Marxist theory, aims and tactics intelligible to any literate non-Marxist mind, To the Finland Station is an invaluable book.

He praises the work's enormous scope and writes that the book "interweaves philosophy, sociology, psychobiography, literary criticism, economic analysis, political history and theory, always in complex and sophisticated ways—and yet, for all this, the human narrative hardly ever flags, but sweeps us breathlessly along."

Berman also lauds Wilson's depiction of historical figures, calling his characterization of Marx "brilliant and probably unsurpassable, almost Shakespearean in its tragic grandeur and anguish."

"[11] He states that Wilson "was justified in arguing, in the introduction to the 1972 edition, that his book constituted 'a basically reliable account of what the revolutionists thought they were doing in the interests of a 'better world.'"