Books in the A Colorni-Hirschman International Institute series

The name of Eugenio Colorni is quite familiar among the many intellectuals who knew Albert Hirschman. This is not true, however, of his work. The reason for this is that while Albert often spoke about his brother-in-law and close friend and acknowledged his influence on his own thinking, until now Eugenio's work, with one notable exception, has not been translated into English. Recently, however, "A Colorni-Hirschman International Institute" has begun publishing excerpts in English as part of a yearly dossier, "Long is the Journey. . . ," which is included on its website: www.colornihirschman.org. Building on this, Nicoletta Stame and I are now editing an initial sampling that reflects Eugenio's brilliance and ingenuity: a mini-anthology (which I hope will prove interesting and enjoyable) of texts taken mainly from a selection of Eugenio's political writings.

In Discovering the Possible Luca Meldolesi recounts over half a century of Hirschman's work, exploring the motivations, methodology, and unexpected developments of his research. Published simultaneously in Italian, Spanish, and English, Discovering the Possible is the first book to probe the whole corpus of Hirschman's work and to highlight the wealth of his ideas and the sharp self-irony with which his intuitions are forged into thoughts. The book will interest students and professionals in economics, sociology, political science, and moral philosophy, as well as those who focus on the development sector of these disciplines.

Systems, love, philosophy, science, end-means, anthropomorphism, economy, action, success, separation: these are the main theoretical themes of "that strange and extraordinary dialogue" that developed between Eugenio Colorni and Altiero Spinelli in the Ventotene island (1939-42). They represent an easily accessible, interdisciplinary, iconoclastic, liberating, and fantastic intellectual feast under extreme conditions of confinement imposed by the fascist regime. They developed hand in hand with the political discussion that, with the contribution of Ernesto Rossi and Ursula Hirschmann, gradually unveiled the well-known political Manifesto for the unification of Europe.