Hu Shi, whose life touched virtually every important aspect of society in the twentieth-century China, in particular with his significant contribution in supporting Chinese liberalism and advocating the use of Vernacular Chinese, is perhaps the most fully documented Chinese individual of all time. Through delving into the correspondences the two exchanged over almost half a century and many other written materials, A Pragmatist and His Free Spirit attempts to explore the lesser-known side of the Chinese philosopher and reconstruct the romance between him and an American avant-garde painter Edith Clifford Williams, whose contemporaries include famous modernist artists such as Alfred Stieglitz and Georgia O'Keefee.