Download or read book Shifting Involvements written by Albert O. Hirschman and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2002-01-27 with total page 156 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.