"Albert O. Hirschman was not, by any standard, a typical scholar. German by birth, by age thirty he had fought in two world wars, lived in seven different countries on three continents. He spoke and wrote in five languages, used multiple pseudonyms, and could pass as a French native. He held...

"Between 1946 and 1952, Albert O. Hirschman, a German-born economist and wartime refugee, worked as an economic analyst in the Research Division of the Federal Reserve Board of the United States. He was first in charge of the Western European desk; later he was the Fed's representative to the...