John Maynard Keynes: 2volume 2: The Economist as Savior, 1920-1937
Robert Jacob Skidelsky. Viking Books, $37.5 (768pp) ISBN 978-0-7139-9110-9
Keynes (1883-1946), in Skidelsky's view, was a practical visionary whose achievement was to align economics with changes taking place in ethics, politics and society in a post-WW I world cut adrift from Victorian certitudes, its economy in shambles. This magisterial, gracefully written biography, the second volume in the acclaimed life of the English economist, charts Keynes's metamorphosis from Bloomsbury aesthete and college administrator to self-professed world savior who sought a remedy for the failures of capitalism in active government intervention in the market and monetary policies. Keynes's marriage to Russian ballerina Lydia Lopokova in 1925 gave him emotional ballast. His decisive role in shaping the policies of David Lloyd George's Liberal coalition and his influence on FDR's New Deal are skillfully related here. Skidelsky, a British professor of international studies, critiques Keynes's technocratic, ``anti-democratic bias'' and reassesses Keynesian economics' relevance in this penetrating biography. Photos. (Jan.)
Details
Reviewed on: 01/03/1994
Genre: Nonfiction
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