Bhaskar Sunkara's new book is not a serious scholarly account or defense of democratic socialism, nor does it pretend to be. It is the work of a self-proclaimed activist, and is designed to provide what its title says it is: an intellectual or theoretical framework (handbook) for activists who are not communists and not social democrats but democratic socialists.
Sunkara, the editor of Jacobin and of a new publication called Tribune and Catalyst: A Journal of Theory and Practice, is to the best of my knowledge a very bright but young intellectual without academic, political (other than activist), or entrepreneurial experience. He does not address the vast literature that is critical of socialism; rather he moves wholly (also smoothly, and even learnedly) within socialism's own intellectual silo.
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