The first critical study of the thought of Albert O. Hirschman (1915-2012), “one of the most important and influential social scientists of the twentieth century.”
As Alacevich, a professor of economic history, points out, it’s difficult to categorize Hirschman’s thought and to trace his influence. He created no school and had few students. Yet this activist émigré from Nazi Germany, who early in life aided Varian Fry in his efforts to assist those fleeing Europe, went on to serve in the Office of Strategic Services, the Federal Reserve, and the World Bank, eventually becoming one of the world’s leading international and developmental economists. He then broadened his interests to history, sociology, and politics to create an “interdisciplinary social science” in works that brought together all of the distinct social sciences and infused them with moral urgency. Hirschman introduced such important concepts as “the hiding hand,” “backward and forward linkages,” and “the centrality of side effects.” His characteristic optimism and his “bias for hope” (one of his book’s titles) shine through in what he called “possibilism.” Like his most widely known work, Exit, Voice, and Loyalty, which examined responses to the deterioration of institutions and political organizations, many of his books, accessible to a broad audience, assured “the vastness of his legacy.” One of the many virtues in this book is Alacevich’s evenhandedness. He fairly examines criticisms of Hirschman’s thinking as well as the wide respect in which it is held, and while he’s deeply admiring of his subject, he makes clear his own reservations about some of Hirschman’s arguments. Ultimately, writes the author, Hirschman ended up “in a league of his own.” Read in conjunction with Jeremy Adelman’s Worldly Philosopher, this fine book makes it possible to take the full measure of a distinctive and keenly political intellectual.
A superb examination of the vast legacy of a major 20th-century thinker.Pub Date: April 6, 2021
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: 360
Publisher: Columbia Univ.
Review Posted Online: Dec. 22, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2021
Categories: HISTORICAL & MILITARY | BIOGRAPHY & MEMOIR | ECONOMICS | INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS | HISTORY | WORLD | HOLOCAUST | MODERN
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A top-notch political memoir and serious exercise in practical politics for every reader.
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In the first volume of his presidential memoir, Obama recounts the hard path to the White House.
In this long, often surprisingly candid narrative, Obama depicts a callow youth spent playing basketball and “getting loaded,” his early reading of difficult authors serving as a way to impress coed classmates. (“As a strategy for picking up girls, my pseudo-intellectualism proved mostly worthless,” he admits.) Yet seriousness did come to him in time and, with it, the conviction that America could live up to its stated aspirations. His early political role as an Illinois state senator, itself an unlikely victory, was not big enough to contain Obama’s early ambition, nor was his term as U.S. Senator. Only the presidency would do, a path he painstakingly carved out, vote by vote and speech by careful speech. As he writes, “By nature I’m a deliberate speaker, which, by the standards of presidential candidates, helped keep my gaffe quotient relatively low.” The author speaks freely about the many obstacles of the race—not just the question of race and racism itself, but also the rise, with “potent disruptor” Sarah Palin, of a know-nothingism that would manifest itself in an obdurate, ideologically driven Republican legislature. Not to mention the meddlings of Donald Trump, who turns up in this volume for his idiotic “birther” campaign while simultaneously fishing for a contract to build “a beautiful ballroom” on the White House lawn. A born moderate, Obama allows that he might not have been ideological enough in the face of Mitch McConnell, whose primary concern was then “clawing [his] way back to power.” Indeed, one of the most compelling aspects of the book, as smoothly written as his previous books, is Obama’s cleareyed scene-setting for how the political landscape would become so fractured—surely a topic he’ll expand on in the next volume.
A top-notch political memoir and serious exercise in practical politics for every reader.Pub Date: Nov. 17, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-5247-6316-9
Page Count: 768
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Nov. 16, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2020
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All right, all right, all right: The affable, laconic actor delivers a combination of memoir and self-help book.
“This is an approach book,” writes McConaughey, adding that it contains “philosophies that can be objectively understood, and if you choose, subjectively adopted, by either changing your reality, or changing how you see it. This is a playbook, based on adventures in my life.” Some of those philosophies come in the form of apothegms: “When you can design your own weather, blow in the breeze”; “Simplify, focus, conserve to liberate.” Others come in the form of sometimes rambling stories that never take the shortest route from point A to point B, as when he recounts a dream-spurred, challenging visit to the Malian musician Ali Farka Touré, who offered a significant lesson in how disagreement can be expressed politely and without rancor. Fans of McConaughey will enjoy his memories—which line up squarely with other accounts in Melissa Maerz’s recent oral history, Alright, Alright, Alright—of his debut in Richard Linklater’s Dazed and Confused, to which he contributed not just that signature phrase, but also a kind of too-cool-for-school hipness that dissolves a bit upon realizing that he’s an older guy on the prowl for teenage girls. McConaughey’s prep to settle into the role of Wooderson involved inhabiting the mind of a dude who digs cars, rock ’n’ roll, and “chicks,” and he ran with it, reminding readers that the film originally had only three scripted scenes for his character. The lesson: “Do one thing well, then another. Once, then once more.” It’s clear that the author is a thoughtful man, even an intellectual of sorts, though without the earnestness of Ethan Hawke or James Franco. Though some of the sentiments are greeting card–ish, this book is entertaining and full of good lessons.
A conversational, pleasurable look into McConaughey’s life and thought.Pub Date: Oct. 20, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-593-13913-4
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Oct. 27, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2020
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