Young Sidney Hook: Marxist and Pragmatist

Rating:
Summary: Outstanding Historical Study
Review: The later career of Sidney Hook is well known. However, his earlier career as a Marxist intellectual and activist has been long ignored by historians and biographers. In this short but brilliant work, Christopher Phelps shows us a completely different Hook and makes an important contribution to the literature on American socialists of the twentieth century. This book is even more crucial because Hook himself disavowed his radical past, making an examination of the complexity of his political trajectory more difficult to follow and study. From the first to the last page, this is a compelling book, providing carefully researched insights into Hook's world including Hook's debates with Max Eastman, Hook's role in the brief but important journal, Marxist Quarterly, and his participation in defending exiled Russian revolutionary Leon Trotsky against bogus charges by the brutal Stalin regime. Phelps also discusses important insights about his theoretical views. At a time when utterly disorienting and nihilistic postmodernist theories are fashionable in the social sciences, Phelps' work is like a breath of fresh air that captivates his audience to learn more about history from below, by and about the workers and radical intellectuals that have shaped society. Anyone interested in the history of the 1930s American socialist movement should give this book an immediate place on their bookshelf.