 The range of Hook’s political writings was extended broadly in his contributions to Measure. The issues that had dominated Hook’s criticism of totalitarianism, as well as his criticism of aspects of American liberalism through the 1950s had revolved around the pole of communism versus anti-communism. The emergence of the New Left in 1968 moved Hook’s application of what he believed was his pragmatic commitment to free inquiry from its previous emphasis on the reform of institutional practice toward the emphasis, expressed in Measure, on the balance between continuity and change. Consequently, in the spectrum of political philosophical thought Hook had moved from the liberal wing, in which the priority had been identified as the need to critically evaluate the flaws and faults of American institutional practices in order to reform or transform them, to the conservative wing, in which the priority was identified as the need to protect and sustain the strengths and values that were inherent in American institutional practices. Hook’s writings and positions became linked to American political conservatism on a range of issues from educational curriculum through affirmative action to constitutional questions of the limits of executive privilege and judicial authority.