Albert Hirschman

Before becoming a renowned economist, Albert O. Hirschman fought with anti-fascist forces in the Spanish Civil War and helped run a French rescue operation that helped more than 2,000 people escape the Nazis. Later, Hirschman led a 30-year career at Yale, Columbia, and Harvard as an academic, writing books on a wide range of topics that blended economics, politics, and culture. His honors include the Thomas Jefferson Medal from the American Philosophical Society and the Talcott Parsons Prize for Social Science from the American Academy of Sciences. Updated 2008