Review: John Maynard KeynesEditorial Review - Kirkus ReviewsThe second installment of Skidelsky's three-volume biography of the 20th century's most influential and controversial economist. As in the superb first volume (1986)--which took Keynes (1883-1946) through the immediate aftermath of WW I--Skidelsky (International Studies/University of Warwick) offers a perceptive portrait, one that here reveals a worldly-wise philosopher at the peak of his considerable powers. Focusing on Keynes the innovative, albeit pragmatic, thinker who abandoned any notion that classical economics was a body of knowledge rather than a method of analysis, the author provides accessible perspectives on how the economist involved himself in Whitehall's disastrous decision to return England to the gold standard in 1925; in the mass misery of the Depression; and in other great issues. Stressing his subject's constant efforts to devise an economic system that would tame capitalism's more savage features without unleashing socialism, Skidelsky shows how Keynes achieved international stature sufficient to affect FDR's New Deal and then went on to write a masterwork with remarkable staying power, The General Theory of Employment, Interest, and Money. In tracing the metamorphosis of Keynes from clever young man to authoritative adult, moreover, the author doesn't scant the public man's private life. Among other insights, he provides a moving account of how Keynes, long a homosexual, astounded Bloomsbury friends by falling in love with and marrying Lydia Lopokova, a Russian ballerina. Covered as well are the ways in which Keynes (who moved easily among venues as varied as academe, the arts, finance, government, and high society) used his market savvy to make himself a wealthy man. (One cavil: Skidelsky devotes too much attention to trivial details--e.g., furniture purchases for the Keynes country home and the given names of a servant's children.) A comprehensive and commanding profile that's bidding fair to become the standard reference. (Sixteen pages of b&w illustrations) Review: John Maynard KeynesEditorial Review - Kirkus ReviewsPublished to deserved acclaim in England three years ago, this is the first installment of a projected two-volume biography of Keynes, arguably the 20th-century's most influential economist. Until the appearance of Skidelsky's probing but humane entry, the standard reference was Roy F. Harrod's The Life of John Maynard Keynes (1951); among other deficits, Harrod's excessively discreet work completely ignored the implications of its subject's lifelong homosexuality. In the event, Skidelsky (a professor of international relations at Great Britain's Warwick University) offers a perceptive stage-setting account of Keynes' formative years and early career in government. He documents, for instance, how Keynes came of intellectual age (at Eton and Cambridge) with a generation that renounced the paternalistic ethos of Victorian religion in favor of the analytic philosophy of George E. Moore. With access to previously unavailable source material, the author takes the measure of the complex nature of Keynes' relationships not only with university and Bloomsbury friends but also with writers and artists of the day; the ranks of the latter group included Lytton Strachey and Duncan Grant (with whom Keynes had an intense affair). Skidelsky also records how firsthand experience at the India Office and Treasury led Keynes to respond to economic problems in innovative ways. WW I, however, caused him great personal anguish. Though ""his attitude to the war was very ambiguous,"" Keynes (an undeclared conscientious objector) soldiered on at the Treasury from 1915 through mid-1919. By the time he left, Keynes had attended the Paris Peace Conference and gathered the material that went into The Economic Consequences of The Peace. Committing him as it did to quitting the ivory tower for the real world's problems, this masterly critique signaled a turning point for Keynes. Where it led, of course, is a story for Volume II, which will do well to match the telling details and insights of the text at hand. User reviewsReview: John Maynard Keynes: Volume 2: The Economist as Savior, 1920-1937 (John Maynard Keynes #2)User Review - Yooperprof - GoodreadsThe biography as Economics textbook. For the non-specialist, the intricacies of economics can seem as arcane as medieval theology, but it's possible to skim over those parts and still come away with a ... Read full review Review: John Maynard Keynes: Volume 2: The Economist as Savior, 1920-1937 (John Maynard Keynes #2)User Review - Kelly - GoodreadsI was introduced to Keynes inn college as some sort of demigod. Although that stage of my interest in him has passed, and now i see him much clearer in historical context, his life and theories are of ... Read full review Review: John Maynard Keynes: Volume 3: Fighting for Freedom, 1937-1946 (John Maynard Keynes #3)User Review - Ed - GoodreadsWell 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 ... Read full review Review: John Maynard Keynes: Volume 1: Hopes Betrayed 1883-1920 (John Maynard Keynes #1)User Review - Steve Sewall - GoodreadsFascinating, authoritative study of the leading thinker of his age and perhaps our own as well by an irresistibly able and entertaining writer. Read full review Review: John Maynard Keynes: Volume 3: Fighting for Freedom, 1937-1946 (John Maynard Keynes #3)User Review - Tom - GoodreadsHave 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... Read full review Review: John Maynard Keynes: Volume 2: The Economist as Savior, 1920-1937 (John Maynard Keynes #2)User Review - Billy - GoodreadsCovers the economist from 1920 – 1937, a time in which Keynes cultivated ideas that would coalesce in his seminal 1936 publication The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money. This book would ... Read full review Review: John Maynard Keynes: Volume 2: The Economist as Savior, 1920-1937 (John Maynard Keynes #2)User Review - Zephyr - GoodreadsExcellent economic history of interwar Britain incredibly relevant today plus a fascinating picture of the Bloomsbury group from the perspective of an ambivalent member. Also a great way to get comfortable with macroeconomics, international finance, etc. Read full review Review: John Maynard Keynes: Volume 3: Fighting for Freedom, 1937-1946 (John Maynard Keynes #3)User Review - GoodreadsFinal volume in Skidelsky's three-part biography of Keynes. I am listed in the acknowledgments, so it must be good right? | User ratings| 5 stars | | | 4 stars | | | 3 stars | | | 2 stars | | | 1 star | |
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