Hirschman Albert O. A Bias for Hope: Essays on Development and Latin America

Yale University Press, 1971. — 374 p.The 1960s were dubbed—by the United Nations—as the “development decade,” and Latin America suffered the consequences. A debate then raged between those hawks who advocated the “American way” for all nations and those doves who seemingly took a less dogmatic stand. The two books now under review stand as examples of these positions. But the fact is that, as Albert Hirschman says in another connection, “both parties appear to be in basic agreement”. The same ideology inspires both books, superficial appearances notwithstanding, and it is this ideology that must be critically examined by those who wish to understand the process of change at work in Latin America and North American scholarship about it.