The Price of Peace: Money, Democracy, and the Life of John Maynard Keynes

by Zachary D. Carter (Autore)

Hardcover, 2020

Status

Available

Genres

Collection

Edwin Mitoma Collection

Publication

Random House Inc (2020), 628 pages

Description

"In the spring of 1934, Virginia Woolf sketched an affectionate three-page "biographical fantasy" of her great friend, John Maynard Keynes, attempting to encompass no less than 25 themes, which she jotted down at its opening: "Politics. Art. Dancing. Letters. Economics. Youth. The Future. Glands. Genealogies. Atlantis. Mortality. Religion. Cambridge. Eton. The Drama. Society. Truth. Pigs. Sussex. The History of England. America. Optimism. Stammer. Old Books. Hume." In truth, his life contained even more. Years earlier, as a young Cambridge philosopher and economist, Keynes spent his days moving between government service and academia, and when he was called up to the Treasury on the eve of World War I, he relished an opportunity to save the empire. He worked dutifully, but as the aftermath of the war and the disastrous Versailles Treaty unfolded, with its harsh demands for German reparations, Keynes saw how the strain on its citizens might encourage would-be authoritarians. The experience began a career that spanned two world wars and a global depression and which often found him in a Cassandra-like position, arguing against widely accepted ideas that he saw as outdated or dangerous. His influential ideas made it to America and FDR's New Deal in the Great Depression, and through his books, especially The General Theory, he became a founding giant in the economics profession. Even as his star rose, however, the most important allegiance of Keynes's life was to writers and artists. He valued his membership in the iconic Bloomsbury Group above any position, and he forever envied the talents of his friends like Virginia Woolf and Lytton Strachey, often providing them with much needed financial support as the most gainfully employed member of the group. In return, they gave him a moral compass and inspired his vision of what society should be"--… (more)

User reviews

LibraryThing member larryerick

I never intentionally read a book I expect to dislike or expect to be substandard in any way. At the same time, I don't expect a book to be even better than I have been led to believe it may be. This was such a book. It is still resonating with me. The book is essentially both a biography of the

economist, John Maynard Keynes, and also an analysis of his economic thinking and how it developed as well as how it got repackaged by those that followed him, particularly as it applies to John Kenneth Galbraith. Indeed, it might be argued that this is both about Keynes and Galbraith, despite the title. The word craft used by the author is exemplary for general phrasing and the like, but the writing also skillfully blends together the personal life with the economic theory of its main subject, and it takes multiple economic theories and explains them in the clear ways I expect only from the most engaging of college professors. I minored in Economics in college, so I likely have more familiarity than the average reader with the book's subject. (My wife, who has more formal education than I, didn't even know who John Maynard Keynes was. I did not ask her if she knew who John Kenneth Galbraith was.) With that in mind, I do not know if the average reader will find this book as thoroughly captivating as I did. The author clearly had an affinity for his subject, readily willing and able to discuss a myriad of pros and cons. I would say I would be eager to read another book by him, but I doubt he has the same affinity for another subject to the same degree. For those reading this who doubt this book could draw them in, if I pointed out that John Maynard Keynes was a close friend of Virginia Woolf, among many others, would that wet your fiction-book predisposition to at least check the book out to see how you like it?

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