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This volume explores the controversial question of the relationship between Marxism and pragmatism. In this biography of philosopher Sidney Hook, Christopher Phelps describes his neglected early thought and political history as a New York intellectual, pragmatist philosopher and anti-Stalinist polemicist. Throughout the Cold War decades, Hook was a notoriously strident anti-communist. But in earlier life, he had a very different career as a radical philosopher and Marxist scholar who argued for replacing capitalism with a more democratic society. Phelps chronicles Hook's early years, when he sought to accentuate the radically democratic implications of American pragmatism. A student of John Dewey, Hook was an accomplished writer and the author of "Towards the Understanding of Karl Marx" (1933) and "From Hegel to Marx" (1936). He believed, as he wrote in 1934, that "the only valid criticism of the Communist Party is that it is not communist enough". Although pragmatists and Marxists often viewed one another with suspicion, the young Hook considered the two perspectives equally historical, experimental and committed to social action. Challenging scholars on both the left - who see Hook's early beliefs as ill-conceived - and the right - who see them as immature - Phelps explores the contributions young Hook made to social theory, ethics, politics, epistemology and discussions of scientific method.