I’ve been unable to resist paging through Jerry Adelman’s  biography of Albert Hirschman, [amazon_link id=”0691155674″ target=”_blank” ]Worldly Philosopher.[/amazon_link] I like this summary, from the conclusion:

“Albert Hirschman’s odyssey of the twentieth century can be read – to borrow one of his own metaphors- as the epic of a mariner sailing ever into the wind. What he stood for, fought for and wrote for was a proposition that humans are improvable creatures. Armed with an admixture of daring humility, they could act while being uncertain and embrace alternatives without losing sight of reality. But for much of Hirschman’s century, this was heresy. … Faced with these headwinds, Hirschman tacked back and forth.”

[amazon_image id=”0691155674″ link=”true” target=”_blank” size=”medium” ]Worldly Philosopher: The Odyssey of Albert O. Hirschman[/amazon_image]