Accessibility Tools

  • Content scaling 100%
  • Font size 100%
  • Line height 100%
  • Letter spacing 100%

An intellectual biography of a prolific theorist

by
September 2014, no. 364

Worldly Philosopher: The odyssey of Albert O. Hirschman by Jeremy Adelman

Princeton University Press (Footprint Books), $74 hb, 754 pp

Book 2 Cover Small (400 x 600)

The Essential Hirschman edited by Jeremy Adelman

Princeton University Press (Footprint Books), $47.95 hb, 401 pp

An intellectual biography of a prolific theorist

by
September 2014, no. 364

Albert O. Hirschman (1915–2012) was a development economist and political theorist whose work is essential reading for anyone interested in understanding how economic life figures in the political worlds we inhabit and the ways in which we give meaning to our lives in market-based societies. Perhaps best known for the distinction between ‘exit’ and ‘voice’, Hirschman was a prolific theorist who wrote about the role individual moral virtue and individual self-interest should play in economic activity, how economic growth in the developing world might best be achieved, and the reactionary rhetoric of neo-conservative politicians in the late 1980s, to list but some of the areas he covered. Hirschman’s writing was elegant; further, he understood the importance of the well-chosen word. He was, as this new biography by Jeremy Adelman shows, an economist for whom the essays of Montaigne were as important as the writings of Ricardo and Smith.

Hirschman, it must be said, led a remarkable life, as even the most cursory reading of this biography will attest. Many devoted readers of his work in the social sciences would, I imagine, be completely unaware of the extent to which this writer of scholarly tomes was politically and culturally engaged with some of the most significant historical events and movements of the twentieth century.

Adrian Walsh reviews 'The Worldly Philosopher: The odyssey of Albert O. Hirschman' by Jeremy Adelman and 'The Essential Hirschman' edited by Jeremy Adelman

Worldly Philosopher: The odyssey of Albert O. Hirschman

by Jeremy Adelman

Princeton University Press (Footprint Books), $74 hb, 754 pp

Book 2 Cover Small (400 x 600)

The Essential Hirschman

edited by Jeremy Adelman

Princeton University Press (Footprint Books), $47.95 hb, 401 pp

From the New Issue

You May Also Like

Leave a comment

If you are an ABR subscriber, you will need to sign in to post a comment.

If you have forgotten your sign in details, or if you receive an error message when trying to submit your comment, please email your comment (and the name of the article to which it relates) to ABR Comments. We will review your comment and, subject to approval, we will post it under your name.

Please note that all comments must be approved by ABR and comply with our Terms & Conditions.