Worldly Philosopher: the Odyssey of Albert O. Hirschman Free

FREE WORLDLY PHILOSOPHER: THE ODYSSEY OF ALBERT O. HIRSCHMAN PDF

Goodreads helps you keep track of books you want to read. Want to Read saving…. Want to Read Currently Reading Read. Other editions. Enlarge cover. Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Open Preview See a Problem? Details if other :. Thanks for telling us about the problem. Return to Book Page. Preview — Worldly Philosopher by Jeremy Adelman. Hirschman by Jeremy Adelman. Hirschman, one of the twentieth century's most original and provocative thinkers. In this gripping biography, Jeremy Adelman tells the story of a man shaped by modern horrors and hopes, a worldly intellectual who fought for and wrote in defense of the values of tolerance and change. Born in Berlin inHirschman grew up amid the promise and turmoil of the Weimar era, but fled Germany when the Nazis seized power in Amid hardship and personal tragedy, he volunteered to fight against the fascists in Spain and helped many of Europe's leading artists and intellectuals escape to America after France fell to Hitler. He was an influential adviser to governments in the United States, Latin America, and Europe, as well as major foundations and the World Bank. Along the way, he wrote some of the most innovative and important books in economics, the social sciences, and the history of ideas. Throughout, he remained committed to his belief that reform is possible, even in the darkest of times. This is the first major account of Hirschman's remarkable life, and a tale of the twentieth century as seen through the story of an astute and passionate observer. Adelman's riveting narrative traces how Hirschman's personal experiences shaped his unique intellectual perspective, Worldly Philosopher: The Odyssey of Albert O. Hirschman how his enduring legacy is one of hope, open-mindedness, and practical idealism. Get A Copy. Hardcoverpages. More Details Albert O. Joseph J. Spengler Prize Other Editions 5. Friend Reviews. To see what your friends thought of this book, please sign up. To ask other readers questions about Worldly Philosopherplease sign up. Lists with This Book. Community Reviews. Showing Average rating 4. Rating details. More filters. Sort order. Jun 24, Jan Rice marked it as to- read Shelves: economicskeep-a-suitcase-packedhistorybiography-memoir. View all 5 comments. May 10, Laurent Franckx rated it really liked it. But I am jumping ahead. Hirschman's life belies the idea that prominent thinkers are usually dreadful or uninteresting human beings. He was born in a family of assimilated German Jews during the first World War. His father, a surgeon, died in the year Hitler came to power, and the teenage Hirschman choose exile in France. It is in this period that some of his fundamental attitudes were developed. Whenever you think we are living difficult times, try to imagine what it must have been like to live in the s, without knowing how it would end especially as German Jew. On top of that, take it from the perspective of someone like Hirschman, who was perspicacious enough to understand that doctrinaire Marxism did not offer an attractive alternative to Nazism, but who had also seen German democracy collapse, almost without a fight. What was left for a politically conscious young person in those times? Although he was himself firmly left of centre, and knew quite a bit of Marxists personally, he strongly resisted "big ideas" which he associated with the "claim to Worldly Philosopher: The Odyssey of Albert O. Hirschman cognition of the world" or attempts "to explain multicausal social processes from a single principle". The alternative was "the attempt to come to an understanding of reality in portions, admitting that the angle may be subjective". His life was indeed that a determined anti-Hamlet. He interrupted his studies to fight on the Republican side during the Spanish civil war, and then went on to gain a PhD in economics at the University of Trieste. When the Second World War broke out, he joined the French army, but without seeing action. After the ignominious defeat inHirschman participated in the escape route Varian Fry set up for European Jews. This is badassery of the highest level, even when you don't take into account that Hirschman was himself in very great danger. Economics is slightly less exciting nowadays. Hirschman eventually escaped himself to the US, took a position at Berkeley and got married to Worldly Philosopher: The Odyssey of Albert O. Hirschman Russian exile. When the US joined the war at last, Hirschman volunteered to serve. After being turned down several times, he finally was accepted to work as a translator in the Italy campaign and would eventually serve during the trial of the first German general to be executed for war crimes. After the war, Hirschman played an important role in the setup of the Marshall plan, but soon realized his career in the US was coming to a dead end: as a European exile with Marxist acquaintances and who had served in other conflicts, he was considered suspect in the days of McCarty. He therefore moved to Colombia, where he served as an economic expert in the first World Bank projects outside Europe. The field experience he gained there was crucial in the development of his own thinking about development theory, which culminated in "The Strategy of Economic Development. In a changed political climate, he eventually moved back to the US, to take up academic appointments at Yale, Columbia, Harvard, Princeton etc. In the mid s, Hirschman was called upon to undertake an ex post evaluation of World Bank projects. This involved field work in Worldly Philosopher: The Odyssey of Albert O. Hirschman continents. Not surprisingly with 5 decades of additional hindsight, most projects were considered failures by Worldly Philosopher: The Odyssey of Albert O. Hirschman engineers on the ground interviewed by Hirschman. What is interesting, is that Hirschman often came to a more nuanced conclusion. For instance, sometimes, projects had failed according to their own objectives, but only because they had inspired local people to set up competing projects obviously reducing the benefits of the initial project. Also, Hirschman found that some projects involved unanticipated side benefits. Over the years, Hirschman's work increasingly moved away from mainstream economics, and sought a dialogue with the other social sciences. The link with his own life story is obvious although it wasn't to him until someone pointed it out ; he had chosen exit from Nazi Germany and McCarthyist America, while others had chosen to stay and to oppose not very successfully in the case of Germany of course. However, the source of inspiration was his field work in Nigeria, where he observed that the inefficient railway company preferred customers to 'exit' and transport goods by trucks rather than using their 'voice' and complain about poor service. Later work discussed the intellectual and philosophical foundations of capitalism; which, following Montesquieu, he saw as a way to canalize the pursuit of "passions" into the pursuit of "interests". Throughout his later life stages, he remained actively involved in the world of economic development, and looked with increasing concern at the disappointments of the s and became a fierce critic of the Reagan administration in the s. Happily, he lived to see his old friend Cardoso become president of Brazil. Ina prescient Albert Hirschman worried about the "systematic lack of communication between groups of citizens, such as liberals and conservatives". According to his biographer, he believed that 'loosening the encased certainties That is why Hirschman chose to write a chapter about progressive intransigencies. This allowed him to stand above extremes to defend the space of reform as also a disposition about forms of arguing. Intransigents of all stripes only served a dialogue of the deaf" Hirschman died ina few months after his wife. This fascinating biography is indeed the story of an odyssey, not only in the literal sense, but also intellectually. It is a story of a man of extraordinary courage and convictions, who despite all the horrors and disappointments he went through, never gave up his quest to find ways to improve other people's lives, always giving priority to pragmatic improvement than to dogmatic "grand ideas" that in practice have ended with mass murder and famine. He is an example and inspiration. Feb 13, Ajj rated it liked it. Adelman does a good job with what at times can be quite a dry topic. Unfortunately it was not quite good enough to get me Worldly Philosopher: The Odyssey of Albert O. Hirschman finish the last quarter of Albert Hirschman's life. I found Hirschman's early life in Weimar Germany and then in the 2nd World War to Worldly Philosopher: The Odyssey of Albert O. Hirschman very compelling. Later when he forges a middle ground of political economy it is still interesting but my attraction started to flag. Finally I was just pushing to get the pages read and the book done, which is a sad state of affairs. I can Adelman does a good job with what at times can be quite a dry topic. I cannot tell if it is my lack a detailed understanding of political economy or my small knowledge of the political and economic forces at play in the life of a professional academic but I know I did not bring all that was needed to enjoy this book. It would have made the book more accessible to me if Adelman had used some of his many pages to explore the questions at play more fundamentally. What is being Worldly Philosopher: The Odyssey of Albert O. Hirschman by the Chicago School that Hirschman is against? Why are mathmatics seen as so essential to economic research that Hirschman's brilliant ideas are tossed aside again and again? How are economics being misapplied in American foreign relations? The book is Worldly Philosopher: The Odyssey of Albert O. Hirschman a bad biography over all. Albert O. Hirschman - Wikipedia

London School of Economics. Albert Otto Hirschman [1] born Otto-Albert Hirschmann ; April 7, — December 10, was an Worldly Philosopher: The Odyssey of Albert O. Hirschman and the author of several books on political economy and political ideology. His first major contribution was in the area of development economics. He argued that disequilibria should be encouraged to stimulate growth and help mobilize resources, because developing countries are short of decision making skills. Key to this was encouraging industries with many linkages to other firms. His later work was in political economy and there he advanced two schemata. The first describes the three basic possible responses to decline in firms or polities quitting, speaking up, staying quiet in Exit, Voice, and Loyalty He had a sister, Ursula Hirschmann. Thereafter he held a succession of academic appointments in economics; from — at Yale Universityfrom — at Columbia Universityand for 10 years at Harvard University — He worked for the Institute for Advanced Study from — until his death. His first major contribution was in the area of development economics with the book The Strategy of Economic Development. Here he emphasized the need for unbalanced growth. In his essay The principle of the hiding handHirschman helped develop the hiding hand principle. His later work was in political economy, Worldly Philosopher: The Odyssey of Albert O. Hirschman he advanced two schemata. In Exit, Voice, and Loyalty he described the three basic possible responses to decline in firms or polities quitting, speaking up, staying quiet. In The Passions and the Interests Hirschmann recounts a history of the ideas laying the intellectual groundwork for capitalism. He describes how thinkers in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries embraced the sin of avarice as an important counterweight to humankind's destructive passions. Capitalism was promoted by thinkers including Montesquieu, Sir James Steuart, and Adam Smith as repressing the passions for "harmless" commercial activities. Hirschman noted that terms including "vice" and "passion" gave way to "such bland terms" as "advantage" and "interest. InHirschman proposed a market concentration index which was the square root of the sum of the squares of the market share of each participant in the market. Herfindahl proposed a similar index but without the square rootapparently unaware of the prior work. InHirschman was named among the top American intellectuals, as measured by academic citations, in Richard Posner 's book, Public Intellectuals: A Study of Decline. Inhe won the Benjamin E. Lippincott Award from the American Political Science Association to recognize a work of exceptional quality by a living political theorist for his book The Passions and the Interests: Political Arguments for Capitalism Worldly Philosopher: The Odyssey of Albert O. Hirschman Its Triumph. From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. Hirschman left interpreting for the accused German Anton Dostler in Italy BerlinGerman Empire. The New York Times. Retrieved July 23, Retrieved January 6, Princeton University Press. Hirschman National Power and the Structure of Foreign Trade. University of California Press. Herfindahl, who proposed the same index, except for the square root Concentration in the steel industry. Dissertation: Columbia University. Public Intellectuals: A Study of Decline. Harvard University Press. Social Science Research Council. Europa Publications The International Who's Who Retrieved 24 April Institutional economics. Bain Shimshon Bichler Robert A. Commons Richard T. Ely Robert H. Herfindahl Albert O. Simon Frank Stilwell George W. Stocking Sr. Worldly Philosopher: The Odyssey of Albert O. Hirschman effect Administered prices Barriers to entry Bounded rationality Conspicuous consumption Conspicuous leisure Conventional wisdom Countervailing power Worldly Philosopher: The Odyssey of Albert O. Hirschman competition Herfindahl index Hiding hand principle Hirschman cycle Instrumentalism Kuznets cycles Market concentration Market power Market structure Penalty of taking the lead Satisficing Shortage economy Structure—conduct—performance paradigm Technostructure Theory of two-level planning Veblen goods Veblenian dichotomy. Cultural economics Development economics Economic sociology English historical school of economics Evolutionary economics Evolutionary psychology French historical school Historical school of economics Legal realism Microeconomics Post-Keynesian economics. Namespaces Article Talk. Views Read Edit View history. Help Learn to edit Community portal Recent changes Upload file. Download as PDF Printable version. Wikimedia Commons Wikiquote. Political economy. Wikiquote has quotations related to: Albert O. Wikimedia Commons has media related to Albert Otto Hirschman. Verify your identity

Exit Albert O. Instead, we have only the reductionist snippets of truth that modern economics offers. From there he went to Trieste, where he finished his PhD and became part of the liberal left opposition to Mussolini. When Italy introduced racist laws inhe went to Spain to fight on the Aragon front. Traumatised by the Stalinist purges during the Spanish Civil War, he joined the French forces in their attempt to stop the German invasion - only Worldly Philosopher: The Odyssey of Albert O. Hirschman find himself again on the losing side against the Nazis. He discovered that in a topsy-turvy world in which rules changed rapidly, one had to play the cards that one was dealt in imaginative ways. Equipped with false papers, Hirschman went to Marseilles where he teamed up with Varian Fry and his Emergency Rescue Committee, one of the more successful schemes to smuggle trapped academics, artists, politicians and intellectuals out of Vichy France. Hirschman managed to escape in when the Vichy authorities and the Gestapo discovered that he was equipped with not too few but too many good cover stories and papers. He would return to Europe with the US Army, on the winning side at last. Like Robert Skidelsky, who led readers through Keynesian economics and the intellectual world of its chief architect, Adelman is an able guide. Perhaps the 21st century no longer needs heroes: however, in difficult times such as these, we are desperately in need of possibilists and worldly philosophers such as Hirschman. Get a month's unlimited access to THE content online. Just register and complete your career summary. Worldly Philosopher: The Odyssey of Albert O. Hirschman is free and only takes a moment. Once registered you can read a total of 3 articles each month, plus:. Already registered or a current subscriber? Sign in now. Urgent action is needed to help doctoral candidates whose research has been halted by Covid-related travel bans, says Lorena Gazzotti. Skip to main content. Hirschman by Jeremy Adelman. March 14, Share on twitter Share on facebook Share on linkedin Share on whatsapp Share on mail. Please login or register to read this article. Register to continue Get a month's unlimited access to THE content online. Once registered you can read a total of 3 articles each month, plus: Sign up for the editor's highlights Receive World University Rankings news first Get job alerts, shortlist jobs and save job searches Participate in reader discussions and post comments Register. Have your say Log in or register to post comments. You might also like Mark Griffiths: the professor who publishes a paper every two days. Gambling studies expert puts extraordinary output down to collaboration and hard work. By Jack Grove. Auction theory trailblazers win Nobel prize for economics. The pandemic is Worldly Philosopher: The Odyssey of Albert O. Hirschman an excuse to kill off the arts and humanities. By Peter Tregear. Interrupted fieldwork could mean terminated careers for PhD students. By Lorena Gazzotti. See all jobs.