Albert O. Hirschman has made significant contributions to the fields of development, economic theory, economic history, and the history of ideas. He has also held some of the most prestigious professorships in the U.S. academic world; and his books have been praised highly by eminent writers (such as Kenneth J. Arrow, Stanley Hoffman, Charles E. Lindblom, John K. Galbraith, Karl Deutsch, Robert Kuttner, and Joseph Kraft). So it is not too surprising that members of a faculty should decide--as ours did--to participate voluntarily in a seminar (with some specially qualified students) to explore some of Hirschman's ideas.
However, the views expressed here are not those of followers, as is evident in the ways the authors explore, extend, test, or contest Hirschman's angles of vision. This is all the more so for those who consider his contributions flawed by his failure to "model" his important insights or by the "latitude" of his policy recommendations, or because of a different way of looking at such questions as how disciplines, fields of practices, and societies grow and develop. These diverse and intense reactions are not surprising, given the differences in the participants' perspectives and fields of specialization. and since the work of Hirschman triggers such reactions, we decided to subtitle this volume Essays Provoked by the Work of Albert O. Hirschman. the chapters that follow provide the evidence that led to this decision.
In retrospect, it is clear that Hirschman's incisive, skeptical, ironical cast of mind commands admiration on several grounds: for his inclination to challenge doctrinaire views--not only those of the right and left, but the highly prized concepts of the economics establishment . . .