Albert O. Hirschman, who died today, December 11, at 97 years of age, was a great European and one of the world's most important economists and political philosophy writers. Born in Berlin in a jewish family, he risked his life during WWII, by organizing the International Rescue Committee with the american journalist Varian Fry. Together, they saved many thousands of refugees, including some of the most important intellectuals and artists escaping nazism, such as Hannah Arendt, Max Ernst, André Breton, Alma Mahler, Arthur Koestler, the family of Thomas Mann, and many others. By coincidence, his sister was Ursula Hirschman, who married in Italy our important predecessor, Altiero Spinelli.
Albert O. Hirschman was in the first federalist congress after the war, and — after he moved to the United States of America — he helped organize the trips that Altiero Spinelli made to the US in search of support for the European project. As a professor at the Institute for Advanced Studies in Princeton, he wrote some books that are true gems of thought and reflexion, such as "The Passions and the Interests" and "The Rhetoric of Reaction". As a developmental economist, he helped many countries in Latin America and other parts of the world.