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Keynes: The Twentieth Century's Most Influential Economist
In the midst of our current economic crisis, we peer anxiously over the precipice into an uncertain future, and try to put things in perspective by looking to the past. One name above all keeps on cropping up; often there is a grainy picture of a tall man with thinning hair and a heavy moustache, a half-familiar figure from a former era of worldwide economic depression - an era that closed when the Second World War peremptorily intervened. The name of John Maynard Keynes first came to public attention on both sides of the Atlantic in the early 1920s, when the depression in Britain engaged his attention, with the argument that unemployment needed a radical remedy. This was a direct attack on the orthodoxy of the free-market doctrines of the day, with their reliance on the self-acting mechanisms of the Gold Standard and Free Trade to do the trick - in the long run. No, said Keynes, coining one of his most famous 'In the long run we are all dead.' It is a measure of Keynes's apotheosis that it was President Nixon who said in 1971 that 'we are all Keynesians now', but slowly the name of Keynes lost its gilt; his thinking was dismissed as 'depression economics', irrelevant in a booming economic world. And then came the great meltdown of 2008. Incomprehensibly the market forces, on which the rising generation had been taught to rely, failed to deliver the goods, failed to offer self-correction and failed to cope with a self-inflicted crisis of confidence. For thirty years Keynes's reputation had languished; in thirty days the defunct economist was rediscovered and rehabilitated. Engaging and authoratitive, Keynes explores the often misunderstood man in the context of his own life and times - the impact of his homosexuality and his later marriage to ballerina Lydia Lopokova - and questions the relevence and significance of his groundbreaking ideas today.
224 pages, Hardcover
First published October 1, 2009
10 people are currently reading
128 people want to read
About the author
P.F. Clarke
13 books4 followersDr. Peter Frederick Clarke was Professor of Modern British History from 1991 to 2004 at Cambridge University and Master of Trinity Hall, Cambridge, from 2000 to 2004. He completed his BA in 1963, his MA and PhD in 1967, and his LittD in 1989 all at Cambridge University. A Fellow of the British Academy, he reviews books regularly for The Times Literary Supplement, the London Review of Books and the Sunday Times.
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Displaying 1 - 22 of 22 reviews
October 10, 2014
Keynes by Peter Clarke is a relatively short study of what Clarke calls the 20th century’s most influential economist. The book comprises two parts.First, Clarke offers Keynes’ biography, including his emergence as a major figure in British and international life. Next, Clarke reviews Keynes’ evolution as an economist.
Keynes the man was active socially and bisexually, ultimately settling into an apparently happy marriage with a Russian ballerina whom his Bloomsbury friends did not much like but Keynes adored. He was a great figure at his university, Cambridge, and in the British treasury at Whitehall, and in the counsels of industry, as well. He sponsored and fostered the arts, he made millions as an investor, and he lived well, owning a town and a country house and commuting by Rolls Royce. His quick-witted but apparently amiable disposition made him easy to like and difficult to defeat in debate. He had a mind that broke many molds, pushing people to understand that a government, by stimulating demand, could bring down unemployment and thereby repay the government’s investment in its own society. But Keynes was an active representative of the nation, as well. He was a key interlocutor with the U.S. in the Lend Lease arrangements that helped Britain get through WWII and he performed heroically after WWII in helping give birth to the International Monetary Fund and World Bank.
What more could you ask from life than to be so engaged in both thought and action while maintaining a circle of friends in high politics, literature and the arts?
Clarke’s book isn’t hagiography primarily because Keynes wasn’t a saint. He didn’t always have the right answers and he changed his mind as economic conditions mandated. He was generous in acknowledging the contributions of other economists, and he left a legacy that was so broad that the monetarist Milton Friedman said that in one sense we were all Keynesians and in another sense none of us were Keynesians.
In the US it appears to me that Keynes largely is understood as favoring deficit spending to help economies get out of recessions. Today one would think of Paul Krugman, who has cogently argued that the Obama Administration did many of the right things in dealing with the Great Recession, but not enough of the right things.
Like Keynes, Krugman focuses hard on unemployment. Janet Yellen, chairperson of the FED, does the same. She has a dual mandate from Congress: maintain the stability of the currency (fight inflation, in other words) and also promote employment. In a sense, these are are conflicting tasks. The stability of the currency, or low inflation, matters a lot to the rich. Jobs matter a lot to the poor and out of work. If Keynes has a general influence over what has happened in the U.S. in the last six years, it’s been to keep trying things, even as the Republican House of Representatives believes we’ve outspent our means and should cut back--which would protect the currency’s value but worsen the unemployment numbers. In Europe Keynes may have been less influential than in the U.S. (remember, Keynes died seventy years ago). Only now, as Europe flirts with a second recession have policymakers there begun letting more money flow. It’s obviously needed. Germany has terrible memories of inflation in the 1920s. France is right, though, in refusing to accept the disciplines implicit in the EU’s unsuccessful efforts to get the continent moving again.
I’d recommend Clarke’s book to anyone interested in Keynes, or to anyone who wants to learn about him. It happens that I read this book right after reading an excellent book about Jean-Paul Sartre, and I asked myself which of these giants of the 20th century mattered the most and made the most sense. The fact is that Sartre’s leftism was informed but not highly educated in matters of economics and finance. That does not disqualify him from competing with Keynes in the sense that Keynes himself placed great emphasis on the hard to estimate impact of expectations and outlooks on economic futures. What Sartre stood for was socio-economic equality, and he linked this to the ethics of everyone’s individual freedom and dignity. This has left a powerful legacy. Keynes, by contrast, understood the minutiae of how economies work, and they don’t work with the egalitarian elegance of Sartre’s propositions. Sartre liked to style himself a rationalist, not a metaphysical dreamer. We can grant him that but not in comparison to the multi-decade intellectual leadership Keynes gave the world. He took “the animal spirits” of humanity and developed macroeconomic understandings we still rely upon. By the same token, we still rely upon the IMF and World Bank. In addition, Keynes took the trouble to understand that writing well matters, so while he was not the imaginative equal of Sartre, he was good with the pen as well.
Keynes the man was active socially and bisexually, ultimately settling into an apparently happy marriage with a Russian ballerina whom his Bloomsbury friends did not much like but Keynes adored. He was a great figure at his university, Cambridge, and in the British treasury at Whitehall, and in the counsels of industry, as well. He sponsored and fostered the arts, he made millions as an investor, and he lived well, owning a town and a country house and commuting by Rolls Royce. His quick-witted but apparently amiable disposition made him easy to like and difficult to defeat in debate. He had a mind that broke many molds, pushing people to understand that a government, by stimulating demand, could bring down unemployment and thereby repay the government’s investment in its own society. But Keynes was an active representative of the nation, as well. He was a key interlocutor with the U.S. in the Lend Lease arrangements that helped Britain get through WWII and he performed heroically after WWII in helping give birth to the International Monetary Fund and World Bank.
What more could you ask from life than to be so engaged in both thought and action while maintaining a circle of friends in high politics, literature and the arts?
Clarke’s book isn’t hagiography primarily because Keynes wasn’t a saint. He didn’t always have the right answers and he changed his mind as economic conditions mandated. He was generous in acknowledging the contributions of other economists, and he left a legacy that was so broad that the monetarist Milton Friedman said that in one sense we were all Keynesians and in another sense none of us were Keynesians.
In the US it appears to me that Keynes largely is understood as favoring deficit spending to help economies get out of recessions. Today one would think of Paul Krugman, who has cogently argued that the Obama Administration did many of the right things in dealing with the Great Recession, but not enough of the right things.
Like Keynes, Krugman focuses hard on unemployment. Janet Yellen, chairperson of the FED, does the same. She has a dual mandate from Congress: maintain the stability of the currency (fight inflation, in other words) and also promote employment. In a sense, these are are conflicting tasks. The stability of the currency, or low inflation, matters a lot to the rich. Jobs matter a lot to the poor and out of work. If Keynes has a general influence over what has happened in the U.S. in the last six years, it’s been to keep trying things, even as the Republican House of Representatives believes we’ve outspent our means and should cut back--which would protect the currency’s value but worsen the unemployment numbers. In Europe Keynes may have been less influential than in the U.S. (remember, Keynes died seventy years ago). Only now, as Europe flirts with a second recession have policymakers there begun letting more money flow. It’s obviously needed. Germany has terrible memories of inflation in the 1920s. France is right, though, in refusing to accept the disciplines implicit in the EU’s unsuccessful efforts to get the continent moving again.
I’d recommend Clarke’s book to anyone interested in Keynes, or to anyone who wants to learn about him. It happens that I read this book right after reading an excellent book about Jean-Paul Sartre, and I asked myself which of these giants of the 20th century mattered the most and made the most sense. The fact is that Sartre’s leftism was informed but not highly educated in matters of economics and finance. That does not disqualify him from competing with Keynes in the sense that Keynes himself placed great emphasis on the hard to estimate impact of expectations and outlooks on economic futures. What Sartre stood for was socio-economic equality, and he linked this to the ethics of everyone’s individual freedom and dignity. This has left a powerful legacy. Keynes, by contrast, understood the minutiae of how economies work, and they don’t work with the egalitarian elegance of Sartre’s propositions. Sartre liked to style himself a rationalist, not a metaphysical dreamer. We can grant him that but not in comparison to the multi-decade intellectual leadership Keynes gave the world. He took “the animal spirits” of humanity and developed macroeconomic understandings we still rely upon. By the same token, we still rely upon the IMF and World Bank. In addition, Keynes took the trouble to understand that writing well matters, so while he was not the imaginative equal of Sartre, he was good with the pen as well.
November 17, 2011
Funny how different people expect different things from a book.
Many reviewers were mostly interested in his personal life,
I couldn't care less about that.
I did like the commentary of Keynes ideas and some of the parables he came up with to explain economics in a funny way.
The banana plantation e.g.
The book was an eye opener for me,
the tax and spend crowd likes to fall back on Keynes for support,
but his most basic belief as I understand it,
is that: "the only way to increase actual wealth,
is to increase actual investment"
Not building bridges to nowhere, welfare, or military spending,
but investing in productive business's or useful infrastructure.
And while in a 1930's type depression, one shouldn't worry about a budget deficit,
chronic deficit spending in good times was not part of his belief system.
His beliefs are much more conservative than I had been led to believe.
Many reviewers were mostly interested in his personal life,
I couldn't care less about that.
I did like the commentary of Keynes ideas and some of the parables he came up with to explain economics in a funny way.
The banana plantation e.g.
The book was an eye opener for me,
the tax and spend crowd likes to fall back on Keynes for support,
but his most basic belief as I understand it,
is that: "the only way to increase actual wealth,
is to increase actual investment"
Not building bridges to nowhere, welfare, or military spending,
but investing in productive business's or useful infrastructure.
And while in a 1930's type depression, one shouldn't worry about a budget deficit,
chronic deficit spending in good times was not part of his belief system.
His beliefs are much more conservative than I had been led to believe.
July 23, 2025
Regelmatig moeilijk tot helemaal niet te begrijpen, die economische theorieën.
Maar wel wordt duidelijk dat ze ontstaan zijn in reactie op de ‘omgevingsfactoren’ van het moment dat- en van die plaats waar Keynes bezig was bestuurlijke problemen te doordenken en op te lossen. En te midden van al die meer praktische oplossingen ontstonden er tijdloze theorieën, theorieën die ook nu nog gelden en gebruikt worden.
Het lijkt een dubbele verdienste, maar onder wetenschappers werd Keynes er regelmatig van verdacht vooral een eigen politieke agenda te hebben en probeerden politici hem weg te zetten als economisch theoreticus. Door de hond én de kat gebeten.
Bovendien werd de stabiliteit van zijn denken in twijfel getrokken omdat hij nog wel eens van standpunt veranderde. Zelf zei hij daarover: ‘Ik ben ontzettend leergierig. Ik leer van kritiek en heb mijzelf al eerder blootgesteld aan het verwijt dat ik in tweede instantie verstandiger dingen zeg dan in eerste – wat volgens sommige mensen op een gevaarlijke instabiliteit van karakter duidt’.
Keynes had geen titel in de economie. In Cambridge had hij wiskunde gestudeerd. Pas na zijn examen begon hij aan een studie economie: een uur per week gedurende acht weken. Een econoom, vond hij, moest wiskundige, historicus, staatsman en filosoof zijn.
Als lid van ‘Bloomsbury’, een groep jonge intellectuelen (onder meer Lytton Strachey, E.M.Forster, Leonard & Virginia Woolf) scherpte hij zijn geest. Daar was zijn homoseksualiteit geen probleem, maar zijn eerste biograaf (Roy Harrod) schreef er een beetje omheen want het mocht geen smet op de biografie van deze gerespecteerde persoon worden. Pas in 1967 werd ook deze kant van Keynes gemeengoed, toen een aantal openhartige ‘Bloomsburrybiografieen’ gepubliceerd werden.
Keynes schreef in 1919, met heldere geest en scherpe pen, ‘De economische gevolgen van de vrede’, over de onmogelijke herstelbetalingen die na WO I aan Duitsland werden opgelegd en waarschuwde voor de problemen die daaruit voort zouden komen.
Hij was een echte liberaal maar verwierp het bovennatuurlijk geloof in ‘de markt’ die altijd weer tot een natuurlijk evenwicht zou terugkeren. In zijn tijd vertrouwde men er op dat de gouden standaard en de vrije handel op de lange termijn voor een oplossing zouden zorgen. ‘Op de lange termijn zijn we allemaal dood’, reageerde Keynes. Het zou een van zijn beroemdste uitspraken worden.
Als polemist greep hij de kans de Britse regering ongevraagd en overvloedig van advies te dienen (‘De economische gevolgen van de heer Churchill’). Zijn pleidooi voor door de staat geïnitieerde en gefinancierde openbare werken om de economie weer op gang te helpen werden (aanvankelijk) niet gewaardeerd. En in de ogen van zijn critici ging het van kwaad tot erger toen hij vraagtekens plaatste bij de gouden standaard en het belang van een sluitende staatsbegroting.
In Amerika koos Franklin D. Roosevelt wél voor een actief beleid, de New Deal.
Keynes merkte op dat Roosevelt het gelijk aan zijn zijde had, en legde zijn eigen kijk op de zaak uit in een open brief aan de New York Times (1933). Daarmee werd de naam van Keynes geassocieerd met het beleid van de New Deal. Het is opvallend dat Keynes een centrale positie innam in de Amerikaanse debatten over economisch beleid en daarin belangrijker was dan welke Amerikaanse econoom ook.
In 1936 verscheen zijn magnum opus ‘The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money’.
Tijdens WO II werd Keynes een invloedrijk beleidsmaker die de zorg voor de geldmiddelen voor de oorlog op zich nam. Hij onderhandelde met de Amerikanen in het kader van de Leen- en pachtwet. Hij onderhandelde ook met hen toen de regeling in 1945 plotseling stopte en de Britse oorlogseconomie weer omgebouwd moest worden naar een vredeseconomie.
Ook was hij prominent betrokken bij de Bretton Woods (1946), waar het het nieuwe financieel systeem voor het westen uitgedacht werd.
Keynes bleef in actieve overheidsdienst tot zijn hart het in april 1946 opgaf.
Maar zijn gedachtegoed bleek onsterfelijk en beïnvloed zowel economen als politici over de hele wereld, tot op de dag van vandaag.
Maar wel wordt duidelijk dat ze ontstaan zijn in reactie op de ‘omgevingsfactoren’ van het moment dat- en van die plaats waar Keynes bezig was bestuurlijke problemen te doordenken en op te lossen. En te midden van al die meer praktische oplossingen ontstonden er tijdloze theorieën, theorieën die ook nu nog gelden en gebruikt worden.
Het lijkt een dubbele verdienste, maar onder wetenschappers werd Keynes er regelmatig van verdacht vooral een eigen politieke agenda te hebben en probeerden politici hem weg te zetten als economisch theoreticus. Door de hond én de kat gebeten.
Bovendien werd de stabiliteit van zijn denken in twijfel getrokken omdat hij nog wel eens van standpunt veranderde. Zelf zei hij daarover: ‘Ik ben ontzettend leergierig. Ik leer van kritiek en heb mijzelf al eerder blootgesteld aan het verwijt dat ik in tweede instantie verstandiger dingen zeg dan in eerste – wat volgens sommige mensen op een gevaarlijke instabiliteit van karakter duidt’.
Keynes had geen titel in de economie. In Cambridge had hij wiskunde gestudeerd. Pas na zijn examen begon hij aan een studie economie: een uur per week gedurende acht weken. Een econoom, vond hij, moest wiskundige, historicus, staatsman en filosoof zijn.
Als lid van ‘Bloomsbury’, een groep jonge intellectuelen (onder meer Lytton Strachey, E.M.Forster, Leonard & Virginia Woolf) scherpte hij zijn geest. Daar was zijn homoseksualiteit geen probleem, maar zijn eerste biograaf (Roy Harrod) schreef er een beetje omheen want het mocht geen smet op de biografie van deze gerespecteerde persoon worden. Pas in 1967 werd ook deze kant van Keynes gemeengoed, toen een aantal openhartige ‘Bloomsburrybiografieen’ gepubliceerd werden.
Keynes schreef in 1919, met heldere geest en scherpe pen, ‘De economische gevolgen van de vrede’, over de onmogelijke herstelbetalingen die na WO I aan Duitsland werden opgelegd en waarschuwde voor de problemen die daaruit voort zouden komen.
Hij was een echte liberaal maar verwierp het bovennatuurlijk geloof in ‘de markt’ die altijd weer tot een natuurlijk evenwicht zou terugkeren. In zijn tijd vertrouwde men er op dat de gouden standaard en de vrije handel op de lange termijn voor een oplossing zouden zorgen. ‘Op de lange termijn zijn we allemaal dood’, reageerde Keynes. Het zou een van zijn beroemdste uitspraken worden.
Als polemist greep hij de kans de Britse regering ongevraagd en overvloedig van advies te dienen (‘De economische gevolgen van de heer Churchill’). Zijn pleidooi voor door de staat geïnitieerde en gefinancierde openbare werken om de economie weer op gang te helpen werden (aanvankelijk) niet gewaardeerd. En in de ogen van zijn critici ging het van kwaad tot erger toen hij vraagtekens plaatste bij de gouden standaard en het belang van een sluitende staatsbegroting.
In Amerika koos Franklin D. Roosevelt wél voor een actief beleid, de New Deal.
Keynes merkte op dat Roosevelt het gelijk aan zijn zijde had, en legde zijn eigen kijk op de zaak uit in een open brief aan de New York Times (1933). Daarmee werd de naam van Keynes geassocieerd met het beleid van de New Deal. Het is opvallend dat Keynes een centrale positie innam in de Amerikaanse debatten over economisch beleid en daarin belangrijker was dan welke Amerikaanse econoom ook.
In 1936 verscheen zijn magnum opus ‘The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money’.
Tijdens WO II werd Keynes een invloedrijk beleidsmaker die de zorg voor de geldmiddelen voor de oorlog op zich nam. Hij onderhandelde met de Amerikanen in het kader van de Leen- en pachtwet. Hij onderhandelde ook met hen toen de regeling in 1945 plotseling stopte en de Britse oorlogseconomie weer omgebouwd moest worden naar een vredeseconomie.
Ook was hij prominent betrokken bij de Bretton Woods (1946), waar het het nieuwe financieel systeem voor het westen uitgedacht werd.
Keynes bleef in actieve overheidsdienst tot zijn hart het in april 1946 opgaf.
Maar zijn gedachtegoed bleek onsterfelijk en beïnvloed zowel economen als politici over de hele wereld, tot op de dag van vandaag.
August 17, 2017
I received this book for free as part of LibraryThing's Early Reviewers program.
This is a fun little book, and by little, I mean just long enough to cover the life of John Maynard Keynes, while still clocking in under 200 pages, not counting endnotes and bibliography. I find the life of Keynes fascinating, and I genuinely learned things by reading this biography. For example, Keynes' literary friends in his Bloomsbury circle were genuinely mystified that he chose to marry a ballerina. Also, he and his wife wanted kids, but suffered from infertility.
Yet, I'm not sure I can really recommend this book. I've had this book for eight years, and I've read it three times trying to review it. I think the problem is the material is not quite chronological, and not quite topical, but rather a kind of stream-of-consciousness combination of the two. It makes it really hard to form a coherent picture of the life and times of Maynard Keynes, which is the only reason I want to read a book like this. I took to making notes in the margin to document what year an event happened, so I could reconstruct a timeline of events that are close in time but spread across chapters.
If you just want a fun read with a few facts sprinkled in, then this probably won't bother you. On the other hand, if you like to place things in perspective, then this book makes that unnecessarily hard.
This is a fun little book, and by little, I mean just long enough to cover the life of John Maynard Keynes, while still clocking in under 200 pages, not counting endnotes and bibliography. I find the life of Keynes fascinating, and I genuinely learned things by reading this biography. For example, Keynes' literary friends in his Bloomsbury circle were genuinely mystified that he chose to marry a ballerina. Also, he and his wife wanted kids, but suffered from infertility.
Yet, I'm not sure I can really recommend this book. I've had this book for eight years, and I've read it three times trying to review it. I think the problem is the material is not quite chronological, and not quite topical, but rather a kind of stream-of-consciousness combination of the two. It makes it really hard to form a coherent picture of the life and times of Maynard Keynes, which is the only reason I want to read a book like this. I took to making notes in the margin to document what year an event happened, so I could reconstruct a timeline of events that are close in time but spread across chapters.
If you just want a fun read with a few facts sprinkled in, then this probably won't bother you. On the other hand, if you like to place things in perspective, then this book makes that unnecessarily hard.
March 6, 2022
Vignettes without the story.
October 13, 2016
Fascinating study in how to learn and adapt, and how popular perception can be wrong.
It is split into two parts the first is more a biography. How his family was in a position to put him into school and once graduating college to teach and learn Economics. How he lived with a bunch of other intellectuals and enjoyed being on the fringes of society. Like Einstein his early work and writings continued to have profound influences on his thinking.
The book is very biased to Keynes side and presents a very “old boys club” view of banking and government in 1930-1950’s England.
The second part is more a commentary on Keynes ideas. It can be a little academic by having pages full of interest and investments and savings but i didn't have a hard time following it.
The main thesis is Keynes advocated for doing what was best at the time (his 2nd best solution) whether that was govt putting money into the system by public works in a recession or by having a balanced budget during a boom. He was willing to look at data and change accordingly not adhering to dogmatic following. A few funny lines showed the author's skill.
the end talking about how Keynes wrote different forwards to other translations for German/French/Japanese showed his intelligence to know that what he was talking about in his books was very much about the current moment and place that he was writing about and if you were not from there it would be difficult to see how revolutionary there were thought to have been .
It is split into two parts the first is more a biography. How his family was in a position to put him into school and once graduating college to teach and learn Economics. How he lived with a bunch of other intellectuals and enjoyed being on the fringes of society. Like Einstein his early work and writings continued to have profound influences on his thinking.
The book is very biased to Keynes side and presents a very “old boys club” view of banking and government in 1930-1950’s England.
The second part is more a commentary on Keynes ideas. It can be a little academic by having pages full of interest and investments and savings but i didn't have a hard time following it.
The main thesis is Keynes advocated for doing what was best at the time (his 2nd best solution) whether that was govt putting money into the system by public works in a recession or by having a balanced budget during a boom. He was willing to look at data and change accordingly not adhering to dogmatic following. A few funny lines showed the author's skill.
the end talking about how Keynes wrote different forwards to other translations for German/French/Japanese showed his intelligence to know that what he was talking about in his books was very much about the current moment and place that he was writing about and if you were not from there it would be difficult to see how revolutionary there were thought to have been .
April 19, 2012
This is a fairly short book about Keynes, one of the most infleuntial economists. Peter Clarke includes a helpful index, endnotes and a bibliography. What I liked about the bibliography was that he placed an asterick on books that he recommends to the reader for further information. For people looking for more information, this was a great addition. The author also does provide some visual aids which I always like, especially with biographies because you can meet the man you are learning about.
Although this book does provide some helpful information about Keynes that I didn't know before, it still felt too short. Almost like a long introduction. This book, would be a great introduction to Keynes and for people who just need an overview of the man and the times he lived in. For people who are needing deep research, this book would not be for you. However, taking a gander at the bibliography may help those readers some.
Overall, this was a good book, just could have been a bit longer with more information/detail.
Although this book does provide some helpful information about Keynes that I didn't know before, it still felt too short. Almost like a long introduction. This book, would be a great introduction to Keynes and for people who just need an overview of the man and the times he lived in. For people who are needing deep research, this book would not be for you. However, taking a gander at the bibliography may help those readers some.
Overall, this was a good book, just could have been a bit longer with more information/detail.
December 2, 2009
I really do like biographies but this one was BORING. Keynes has had such a profound influence on economic and policy thinking that it seems like he'd be an ideal subject for a biography. He seems also to have been charismatic and charming. He had lifelong friendships with Virginia Woolf and E.M. Forster. He had relationships with Winston Churchill, Neville Chamberlain, and FDR. He seems to have been either bisexual or closeted gay, though he did seem to have had a wonderful marriage to a famous(ish) ballerina. What's not intersting about all of that? He'd be a great subject for a biography.... right?
I learned a lot of dry facts placed in chronological order but learned very little about the man himself. The style of writing was boring and a bit pretentious. Very thoroughly researched but very hard to get through. If I had a more immediate interest in economics (taking an econ class right now, etc.), I might have found the raw facts more interesting.
I learned a lot of dry facts placed in chronological order but learned very little about the man himself. The style of writing was boring and a bit pretentious. Very thoroughly researched but very hard to get through. If I had a more immediate interest in economics (taking an econ class right now, etc.), I might have found the raw facts more interesting.
November 18, 2009
I won this off goodreads, which just goes to prove that those get a free book competitions actually give out free books. That said, this was pretty blah. Clarke's a very nice writer, so it's easy to read. But that's about the best I can say- the biographical stuff was fine, but there was very little about the Fall or Return of this Influential Economist. And the book doesn't really explain why he was so influential until the last chapter... and even then doesn't do a very good job. Was his major innovation really convincing people that investment could lead to savings rather than the other way round? Really? The *General Theory* gets all of two pages. I'm sure there are better biographies; I hope to hell there are better intellectual biographies. But it's short enough to read in an afternoon, and I'm encouraged enough that I'd want to read other things written by Peter Clarke which require a little less explanation of complicated ideas, i.e., his history of 20th century Britain.
June 2, 2016
The writings of John Maynard Keynes fall into that class of literature in which far more people have strong opinions on what Keynes meant or said (or why he was absolutely wrong or right) than have ever troubled themselves to read a single sentence of the works. The problem is compounded by Keynes' constant rethinking of his approaches and analyses over the years. His opponents are quick to point to his inconsistency and self-contradiction as a fault.
Peter Clarke, in this short volume, explains that Keynes continued to re-think how the world worked and this caused his views to evolve over time. The Keynes of "A Treatise on Money" is not the same thinker behind "The General Theory." Clarke does a good job of explaining the economic arguments in a way easily understood by the layman. He also details how Keynes has been distorted by his detractors and apostles. The result is a better appreciation of a most creative thinker of the past century.
Peter Clarke, in this short volume, explains that Keynes continued to re-think how the world worked and this caused his views to evolve over time. The Keynes of "A Treatise on Money" is not the same thinker behind "The General Theory." Clarke does a good job of explaining the economic arguments in a way easily understood by the layman. He also details how Keynes has been distorted by his detractors and apostles. The result is a better appreciation of a most creative thinker of the past century.
July 14, 2013
Instead read the Wikipedia article
That's what you should do if you want to understand the life of Keynes and his economic ideas of both policy and theory. It is truly futile to try to reach the core of the book through all those mostly redundant quotes of who said what and who replied to whom, etc.
The author uses many highly sophisticated words which makes those readers who are not native English speakers feel alienated from the text they are reading. Due to this reason, I tried to the understand the meaning many sentences by reading the previous and the next, because it is not plausible to look at the dictionary everytime there is an unknown word.
Overall, I suggest to find other books which include uninterrupted paragraphs by mostly unnecessary quotes of many people.
That's what you should do if you want to understand the life of Keynes and his economic ideas of both policy and theory. It is truly futile to try to reach the core of the book through all those mostly redundant quotes of who said what and who replied to whom, etc.
The author uses many highly sophisticated words which makes those readers who are not native English speakers feel alienated from the text they are reading. Due to this reason, I tried to the understand the meaning many sentences by reading the previous and the next, because it is not plausible to look at the dictionary everytime there is an unknown word.
Overall, I suggest to find other books which include uninterrupted paragraphs by mostly unnecessary quotes of many people.
November 3, 2009
Let me start by saying that I think this book is for a pretty selective audience. While anyone who wants to learn more about Keynes or about the impact of his policies would probably enjoy this book, it does not really have too much of a mass appeal. That being said, I did enjoy reading the biography part of this book and learning about both Keynes' personal life and public life; he was definitely not who I expected. I also found the epilogue to be of particular interest, in a time of economic crisis it is always valuable to look to the past to teach us lessons.
May 22, 2010
I have to admit, as an economics student who had just recently had to submit an essay on "Putative Keynesianism in the 21st Century", this was a godsend. I've read much easier books, however, the overall quality of the biography is profound, yet concise, and to the point. Worth a read for anybody studying economics in the current economic climate, or anybody curious to learn about the rather flamboyant celebrity economist: John Maynard Keynes.
April 30, 2012
" We can still benefit from some of Keynes's central theoretical insights. We can recognise not only that expectations are crucial, but that they are often circular and self-fulfilling, for good or ill. We can recognise that there are problems that the market cannot sort out for us, when our individual urges to protect ourselves become self-defeating. And we can recognise that government, far from being the problem, is a necessary part of the solution" (page 178)
December 29, 2009
Keynesian theory is especially intoday's economic climes and having a glimpse of his personal life brings and added dimension to him as person as opposed to his policies. I enjoyed the biography although if you are not a fan of the great British intellectual personas of the early twentieth century, this biography may not be for you.
February 28, 2015
A brief biography of Keynes. Not terribly familiar with him or economic theory and reading this seemed a decent way to remedy that. If you are looking for something in depth or very academic this may not be the book for you. However, it is written for an adult audience and the author doesn't mind spending time on some of the technical issues Keynes had to deal with.
November 14, 2009
This was an interesting book on Keynes. I enjoyed the life history of Keynes and learned things about him that I knew nothing about. Was bland, but if you are interested in Keynes as a man and economist read it.
August 22, 2013
The book started off well enough (I quite enjoyed the first chapter or two), but thereafter it became so dull that I eventually gave up around p. 130. And I really tried to keep going - don't like giving up so far into a book. Nuff said.
December 31, 2022
This book was informative and I learned a great deal about Keynes, as well as the monetary policy his pushed and the era in which he promoted it. Unfortunately the writing style was very unnecessarily difficult and a little 'smug', I would recommend looking at other Keynes biographies first.
June 13, 2011
More entertaining than Skidelsky's one volume treatment of Keynes and his influence, but less insightful.
April 11, 2012
An interesting biography, but not particularly helpful for shedding light on economic theory. Too many assumptions made on the brilliance of the reader...
April 21, 2019
This was everything I hoped it would be: some biography, some economics, some history, some time period colour, a bit of Bloomsbury, and lots of Keynes! If you fancy that combo, this one is for you.
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