| Book Review | The Journal of American History, 92.3

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| Book Review | The Journal of American History, 92.3 | The History Cooperative

Book Review

Sidney Hook Reconsidered. Ed. by Matthew J. Cotter. (Amherst, N.Y.: Prometheus, 2004. 392 pp. $32.00, ISBN 1-59102-193-6.)
During the Vietnam War years, Sidney Hook appeared on William F. Buckley's Firing Line television show; he pilloried the opponents of the war with his acerbic wit and sharp knife of logic. Hook so disgusted me that I had to turn off the program. He struck me as terribly wrong and mean-spirited, albeit effective in his positions.	1
The essays collected in this volume suggest that Hook deserves more attention. Over a fifty-year career, Hook established himself as a leading opponent of Nazi and Soviet authoritarianism. Into the 1930s, Hook was a Marxist radical and an antiauthoritarian. As Christopher Phelps shows in his contribution, Hook supported a workers' revolution as he attempted to merge John Dewey's pragmatism with Marxism. Indeed, Hook's analyses of Marxism are still useful, and he introduced the serious study of Marxism into American classrooms. Hook claimed to believe, throughout his career, in social democracy, exemplified in free inquiry, debate, and scientific method. By the 1970s, however, Hook trumpeted a neoconservative stance, railing against the cultural Left, supporting the Vietnam War, and even voting for Richard M. Nixon. However, Hook remained, as his autobiography announced, often out of step with his times. Even in his neoconservative years, Hook was a staunch secularist and an open defender of agnosticism.	. . .

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