The Passions and the Interests: An Edwardsean Understanding of Populism

Abstract

The name Albert Hirschman might not appear at the top of the reading list for Edwards studies.  A philosopher of economic history, Albert Hirschman emigrated from Nazi Germany in 1940, came to teach at Yale University, and then moved to Columbia, Harvard, and eventually Princeton.  This little piece of study wanders off from our usual subject, but as will later become clear, it is not entirely unrelated to Edwards.  The inquiry begins with a question that this unique 20th-century historian asked in his book The Passions and the Interests.