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John Maynard Keynes #3
John Maynard Keynes, Vol. 3: Fighting for Freedom, 1937-1946
This is the eagerly awaited third, and final, volume of Robert Skidelsky's definitive and consummate biography of John Maynard Keynes. It is the culmination of a remarkable work dealing with the life and influences of a passionate visionary who finally succeeded in achieving respectability and acceptance on his own terms, not those of a British establishment usually mistrustful of men of ideas.
Dealing with the period from 1937, when Keynes had become the most famous economist and one of the most famous figures in Britain, to his death in 1946, Volume III focuses on Keynes's outstanding contribution to the financing of Britain's war effort, to the building of the postwar economic order, and on his role in the "other war"—Britain's struggle to preserve its independence within the Atlantic Alliance, which took him on six wearying and often acrimonious missions to the United States.
Fighting for Freedom opens in the twilight years between peace and war and draws a parallel between Keynes's own health and that of contemporary capitalism. Keynes's physical condition was, like his reputation, on a knife edge. Suffering from heart disease, he spent nearly two years as a semi-invalid. But it was during this period that he showed how his General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money was not just an antidepression theory, but could also be turned into a powerful intellectual engine of war finance.
The culmination of these efforts was his famous anti-inflationist tract, How to Pay for the War, whose logic, and supporting national income accounts, was accepted as the basis of Kingsley Wood's budget of 1941. For the rest of his life Keynes was involved in difficult financial negotiations with the United States, first to establish conditions of American help to Britain, the to devise a postwar financial system that satisfied American requirements without sacrificing Britain's interests, and finally, and most traumatically, to get Britain a loan to tide it over the first postwar years. When he died in 1946, Lionel Robbins wrote, "He gave his life for his country, as surely as if he had fallen on the field of battle."
Skidelsky at all times is utterly lucid in his treatment of his subject, both in explaining Keynes's ideas and in picking his way through the complexities of his personality. The books abounds in good stories and memorable portraits, notably that of his devoted wife. Lydia Lopokova, whose eccentric but utterly logical "post-Keynesian" existence is charted in a delightful epilogue, and of his flamboyant medical adviser, Janos Pesch.
Insightful and intelligent, this is a work that tells the story of one of the most important and fascinating men of this century and provides an invaluable overview of matters that remain at the center of political and economic discussion.
Dealing with the period from 1937, when Keynes had become the most famous economist and one of the most famous figures in Britain, to his death in 1946, Volume III focuses on Keynes's outstanding contribution to the financing of Britain's war effort, to the building of the postwar economic order, and on his role in the "other war"—Britain's struggle to preserve its independence within the Atlantic Alliance, which took him on six wearying and often acrimonious missions to the United States.
Fighting for Freedom opens in the twilight years between peace and war and draws a parallel between Keynes's own health and that of contemporary capitalism. Keynes's physical condition was, like his reputation, on a knife edge. Suffering from heart disease, he spent nearly two years as a semi-invalid. But it was during this period that he showed how his General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money was not just an antidepression theory, but could also be turned into a powerful intellectual engine of war finance.
The culmination of these efforts was his famous anti-inflationist tract, How to Pay for the War, whose logic, and supporting national income accounts, was accepted as the basis of Kingsley Wood's budget of 1941. For the rest of his life Keynes was involved in difficult financial negotiations with the United States, first to establish conditions of American help to Britain, the to devise a postwar financial system that satisfied American requirements without sacrificing Britain's interests, and finally, and most traumatically, to get Britain a loan to tide it over the first postwar years. When he died in 1946, Lionel Robbins wrote, "He gave his life for his country, as surely as if he had fallen on the field of battle."
Skidelsky at all times is utterly lucid in his treatment of his subject, both in explaining Keynes's ideas and in picking his way through the complexities of his personality. The books abounds in good stories and memorable portraits, notably that of his devoted wife. Lydia Lopokova, whose eccentric but utterly logical "post-Keynesian" existence is charted in a delightful epilogue, and of his flamboyant medical adviser, Janos Pesch.
Insightful and intelligent, this is a work that tells the story of one of the most important and fascinating men of this century and provides an invaluable overview of matters that remain at the center of political and economic discussion.
580 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2001
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282 people want to read
About the author
Robert Skidelsky
68 books134 followersLord Skidelsky is Emeritus Professor of Political Economy at the University of Warwick. His three volume biography of the economist John Maynard Keynes (1983, 1992, 2000) received numerous prizes, including the Lionel Gelber Prize for International Relations and the Council on Foreign Relations Prize for International Relations. He is the author of the The World After Communism (1995) (American edition called The Road from Serfdom). He was made a life peer in 1991, and was elected Fellow of the British Academy in 1994. He is chairman of the Govenors of Brighton College
Robert Skidelsky was born on 25 April 1939 in Harbin, Manchuria. His parents were British subjects, but of Russian ancestry. His father worked for the family firm, L. S. Skidelsky, which leased the Mulin coalmine from the Chinese government. When war broke out between Britain and Japan in December 1941, he and his parents were interned first in Manchuria then Japan, but released in exchange for Japanese internees in England.
From 1953 to 1958, he was a boarder at Brighton College (of which he is now chairman of the board of governors). He went on to read history at Jesus College, Oxford, and from 1961 to 1969, he was successively research student, senior student, and research fellow at Nuffield College, Oxford. In 1967, he published his first book, Politicians and the Slump, Labour Government of 1929-31, based on his D.Phil dissertation. The book explores the ways in which British politicians handled the Great Depression.
During a two year research fellowship at the British Academy, he began work in his biography of Sir Oswald Mosley (published in 1975) and published English Progressive Schools (1969). In 1970, he became an Associate Professor at the School of Advanced International Studies, John Hopkins University. But the controversy surrounding the publication of his biography of Sir Oswald Mosley - in which he was felt to have let Mosley off too lightly - led John Hopkins University to refuse him tenure. Oxford University also proved unwilling to give him a permanent post.
In 1978, he was appointed Professor of International Studies at the University of Warwick, where he has since remained, though joining the Economics Department as Professor Political Economy in 1990. He is currently Andrew D. White Professor-at-Large at Cornell University.
The first volume of his biography of John Maynard Keynes, Hopes Betrayed, 1883-1920, was published in 1983. The second volume, The Economist as Saviour, 1920-1937 (1992) won the Wolfson Prize for History. The third volume, Fighting for Britain, 1937-1946 (2000) won the Duff Cooper Prize, the James Tait Black Memorial Prize for Biography, the Lionel Gelber Prize for International Relations and the Arthur Ross Council on Foreign Relations Prize for International Relations.
Since 2003, he has been a non-executive director of the mutual fund manager, Janus Capital and Rusnano Capital; from 2008-10 he sat on the board of Sistema JSC. He is a director of the Moscow School of Political Studies and was the founder and executive secretary of the UK/Russia Round Table. Since 2002, he has been chairman of the Centre for Global Studies. In 2010, he joined the Advisory Board of the Institute of New Economic Thinking.
He writes a monthly column for Project Syndicate, "Against the Current", which is syndicated in newspapers all over the world. His account of the current economic crisis, Keynes: The Return of the Master, was published by Penguin Allen Lane in September 2009. A short history of twentieth-century Britain was published by Random House in the volume A World by Itself: A History of the British Isles edited by Jonathan Clark in January 2010. He is now in the process of writing How Much is Enough? The Economics of the Good Life jointly with his son Edward Skidelsky.
Robert Skidelsky was born on 25 April 1939 in Harbin, Manchuria. His parents were British subjects, but of Russian ancestry. His father worked for the family firm, L. S. Skidelsky, which leased the Mulin coalmine from the Chinese government. When war broke out between Britain and Japan in December 1941, he and his parents were interned first in Manchuria then Japan, but released in exchange for Japanese internees in England.
From 1953 to 1958, he was a boarder at Brighton College (of which he is now chairman of the board of governors). He went on to read history at Jesus College, Oxford, and from 1961 to 1969, he was successively research student, senior student, and research fellow at Nuffield College, Oxford. In 1967, he published his first book, Politicians and the Slump, Labour Government of 1929-31, based on his D.Phil dissertation. The book explores the ways in which British politicians handled the Great Depression.
During a two year research fellowship at the British Academy, he began work in his biography of Sir Oswald Mosley (published in 1975) and published English Progressive Schools (1969). In 1970, he became an Associate Professor at the School of Advanced International Studies, John Hopkins University. But the controversy surrounding the publication of his biography of Sir Oswald Mosley - in which he was felt to have let Mosley off too lightly - led John Hopkins University to refuse him tenure. Oxford University also proved unwilling to give him a permanent post.
In 1978, he was appointed Professor of International Studies at the University of Warwick, where he has since remained, though joining the Economics Department as Professor Political Economy in 1990. He is currently Andrew D. White Professor-at-Large at Cornell University.
The first volume of his biography of John Maynard Keynes, Hopes Betrayed, 1883-1920, was published in 1983. The second volume, The Economist as Saviour, 1920-1937 (1992) won the Wolfson Prize for History. The third volume, Fighting for Britain, 1937-1946 (2000) won the Duff Cooper Prize, the James Tait Black Memorial Prize for Biography, the Lionel Gelber Prize for International Relations and the Arthur Ross Council on Foreign Relations Prize for International Relations.
Since 2003, he has been a non-executive director of the mutual fund manager, Janus Capital and Rusnano Capital; from 2008-10 he sat on the board of Sistema JSC. He is a director of the Moscow School of Political Studies and was the founder and executive secretary of the UK/Russia Round Table. Since 2002, he has been chairman of the Centre for Global Studies. In 2010, he joined the Advisory Board of the Institute of New Economic Thinking.
He writes a monthly column for Project Syndicate, "Against the Current", which is syndicated in newspapers all over the world. His account of the current economic crisis, Keynes: The Return of the Master, was published by Penguin Allen Lane in September 2009. A short history of twentieth-century Britain was published by Random House in the volume A World by Itself: A History of the British Isles edited by Jonathan Clark in January 2010. He is now in the process of writing How Much is Enough? The Economics of the Good Life jointly with his son Edward Skidelsky.
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
June 11, 2014
This book should be an easy triumph, since the author's first two volumes in his Keynes biography were unquestionably the most lucid and even-handed account of his profound life, and this book recounts Keynes at the very height of his power and influence. His "General Theory on Employment, Money, and Interest" had already begun to reshape the world of economics, and, as an advisor to the British Treasury, he basically planned Britain's financing of World War II. He also conducted the negotiations which lead to American financial support for Britain during the war and then to the whole global financial architecture after it, from Bretton Woods to the World Bank and the IMF. What could be more thrilling than seeing a genius reshaping the world to approximate the one he saw in his mind's eye?
Unfortunately, while the other books were tour de force of intellectual biography, in this Keynes's ideas are notably absent and seemingly irrelevant. The British version of this book was actually titled "Fighting for Britain," and that much more accurately sums up Keynes attitudes and efforts in this period. The author shows Keynes as a man with an singularly parochial spirit, admirable in its own way, based on his love for the social and political moderation of English life, which, as he saw it, steered between the Scylla and Charybdis of European totalitarianism and American materialism, and all his efforts here are really only attempts to preserve Britain's prominence and prosperity in the postwar world. This is thus more of an emotional than an intellectual look at the man. Keynes is continually shocked that Americans, and Britain's colonies, would not give all of their treasure to support Britain's role in the world, going so far as to present one "plan" for post-war reconstruction, which would fully fund Britain's imports during the war, as merely the "Justice" plan. Nonetheless, the author demonstrates that Britain's expenditures irretrievably weakened the once mighty empire, and that despite Keynes attempts to ask the Treasury to stop its "Lady Bountiful" attitude to war expenditures and to save some for afterwards, he knew, and he knew that the Americans knew, that Britain emerged from the war a damaged country.
The author does admirably document Keynes's efforts towards these ends, and is very fair in expressing the Americans and others reluctance to concede to Keyenes's demands. He does also point out the arch-hypocrisy of Harry Dexter White, the American equivalent of Keynes, who was during these years reporting to Russian agents and whose anti-British imperialism efforts were based not just on American interests but on his hopes that the Soviet Union would take a more prominent place in the postwar world. Nonetheless, the author spends a baffling amount of time on picayune details of negotiations between the two nations, including a shocking 60 pages on the post-war discussions with the US on forgiving Lend-Lease loans, which the author admits were soon made irrelevant due to the influx of money from the Marshall plan. This book does then provide a worthwhile conclusion to Skidelsky's trilogy, but I wish it was more in the mold of the exciting intellectual journeys that he demonstrated in his first two.
Unfortunately, while the other books were tour de force of intellectual biography, in this Keynes's ideas are notably absent and seemingly irrelevant. The British version of this book was actually titled "Fighting for Britain," and that much more accurately sums up Keynes attitudes and efforts in this period. The author shows Keynes as a man with an singularly parochial spirit, admirable in its own way, based on his love for the social and political moderation of English life, which, as he saw it, steered between the Scylla and Charybdis of European totalitarianism and American materialism, and all his efforts here are really only attempts to preserve Britain's prominence and prosperity in the postwar world. This is thus more of an emotional than an intellectual look at the man. Keynes is continually shocked that Americans, and Britain's colonies, would not give all of their treasure to support Britain's role in the world, going so far as to present one "plan" for post-war reconstruction, which would fully fund Britain's imports during the war, as merely the "Justice" plan. Nonetheless, the author demonstrates that Britain's expenditures irretrievably weakened the once mighty empire, and that despite Keynes attempts to ask the Treasury to stop its "Lady Bountiful" attitude to war expenditures and to save some for afterwards, he knew, and he knew that the Americans knew, that Britain emerged from the war a damaged country.
The author does admirably document Keynes's efforts towards these ends, and is very fair in expressing the Americans and others reluctance to concede to Keyenes's demands. He does also point out the arch-hypocrisy of Harry Dexter White, the American equivalent of Keynes, who was during these years reporting to Russian agents and whose anti-British imperialism efforts were based not just on American interests but on his hopes that the Soviet Union would take a more prominent place in the postwar world. Nonetheless, the author spends a baffling amount of time on picayune details of negotiations between the two nations, including a shocking 60 pages on the post-war discussions with the US on forgiving Lend-Lease loans, which the author admits were soon made irrelevant due to the influx of money from the Marshall plan. This book does then provide a worthwhile conclusion to Skidelsky's trilogy, but I wish it was more in the mold of the exciting intellectual journeys that he demonstrated in his first two.
August 16, 2020
The best volume of the three: there is a clear plot to Keynes life by this point and Skildelsk describes it brilliantly and fairly.
October 31, 2010
Well I finally finished the third volume of Skidelsky's great biography of the economist John Maynard Keynes. I thoroughly enjoyed it, as I did the other two volumes; though it is now available as one big volume: my goodness must be 1500 pages.
At the end of it, what is most interesting is the complexity of Keynes: fundamentally conservative, traditionally British, becoming a radical iconoclast of free market economic orthodoxy in order to save the free market it from itself. The Keynes of these volumes is so far from the caricature of 'socialist' that comments to newspaper articles throw at him. And of course, he left in today's terms about $15 million, so he knew a thing or two about markets and how to make money on them for himself, his Cambridge College and for the Arts he so loved as part of the Bloomsbury set.
And I guess of course, I remain a Keynesian, so I am biased. Not a Neo-Keynesian or a vulgar un-self aware Keynesian like George W Bush but a balanced one, aware of his limitations (from this biography among other sources) but still thinking he is closer to reality than his opponents today.
At the end of it, what is most interesting is the complexity of Keynes: fundamentally conservative, traditionally British, becoming a radical iconoclast of free market economic orthodoxy in order to save the free market it from itself. The Keynes of these volumes is so far from the caricature of 'socialist' that comments to newspaper articles throw at him. And of course, he left in today's terms about $15 million, so he knew a thing or two about markets and how to make money on them for himself, his Cambridge College and for the Arts he so loved as part of the Bloomsbury set.
And I guess of course, I remain a Keynesian, so I am biased. Not a Neo-Keynesian or a vulgar un-self aware Keynesian like George W Bush but a balanced one, aware of his limitations (from this biography among other sources) but still thinking he is closer to reality than his opponents today.
March 1, 2008
Final volume in Skidelsky's three-part biography of Keynes. I am listed in the acknowledgments, so it must be good right?
Want to read
August 5, 2009Have owned this for a long time, but only read a few pages so far. Time to finish. I know Volumes 1 and 2 are supposed to be better, but this one was available from a remainder outlet...
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews