"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...

This paper, based on previously untapped archival sources, offers an assessment of the life and thought of Paul Rosenstein-Rodan, a pioneer of development economics and one of the first articulators of both the "Big Push" and "balanced growth" theories. In addition to documenting the early life...