Hirschman describes emigration as a safety-valve in regulating political stability by providing the most disgruntled citizens a peaceful way out; suppress this vent, however, and you have yourself a time bomb. Without the option or desire to leave, a nation’s only hope for stability is to be able to keep up with the sometimes conflicting demands of its public by progressing and finding compromise at an adaptive rate.

At its core, All Quiet is a collection of stories and little else. Although this may sound like an empty statement, the book is actually remarkable in this regard for its purity when compared to other works of fiction.