Why does society oscillate between intense interest in public issues and
almost total concentration on private goals? In this classic work,
Albert O. Hirschman offers a stimulating social, political, and economic
analysis dealing with how and why frustrations of private concerns lead
to public involvement and public participation that eventually lead back
to those private concerns. Emerging from this study is a wide range of
insights, from a critique of conventional consumption theory to a new
understanding of collective action and of universal suffrage.