Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
A wonderfuly written book on the world's greatest economist., 2 May 2001
By A Customer
Robert Skidelsk's third and final volume of John Maynard Keynes, is beatifully written. Concentrating on all the major aspects of Keynes' last years, including his tract on 'How to pay for the war and the Kingsly Wood Budget, the protracted Lend-lease negotiations, Bretton Woods, and finally the American Loan talks, Skidelski manages to cover all the major events of his subject's final nine years. There are sadly,only passing references to his old Bloomsbury friends,so obviously a feature of the first and second volumes. However this gap is more than made up by the author's inclusion of Keynes' personal dealings with diverse institutions such as Covent Garden, The Arts Council, and Cambridge University. His final chapter on Keynes' wife Lydia is exceptionally touching. I think the most indellible feature of this volume is the admiration that Keynes' contemporaries had for him. The awe and respect, almost to the point of reverence, that the Americans held for him was amazing. Even the British civil servants in the Treasury were spellbound. If there is one criticism for this book, it is in regard to the actual economics described. As an amateur historian i found the economic arguments very difficult to comprehend. Maybe there is no easy way to put down some of the theories, but for the normal reader they are very difficult to take in. My rating for this book is 4 stars, whilst for the three volumes together, undoubtedly 5 stars.
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3 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Superb biography of the great economist, 22 May 2001
This is the third and final volume of Skidelsky's magnificent biography of Keynes. In his last years, Keynes in effect set the framework for Britain's wartime finances, domestic and external, helping Britain to produce the goods we needed, without excessive inflation. But unfortunately, his post-war negotiations with the US government produced an unworkable agreement, and the British government squandered the agreed loan on efforts to retain the Empire. Keynes always opposed the laisser-faire doctrine that sacrificed domestic employment to free trade. "If nations can learn to provide themselves with full employment by their domestic policy there need be no important economic forces calculated to set the interests of one country against that of its neighbours." The necessary domestic policy meant socialising investment, controlling capital markets to reduce deflationary pressure, and controlling imports through state trading agreements. Keynes wrote, "We must avoid dear money as we would hell-fire." He urged a steady cheap money policy for investment in rebuilding Britain. He stressed that national authorities must keep control over both the domestic rate of interest and the currency so that the country could pursue full employment and progressive social policies. He believed that national monetary sovereignty was vitally important. In 1944, Keynes summarised his policies, "We are determined that, in future, the external value of sterling shall conform to its internal value as set by our own domestic policies, and not the other way round. Secondly, we intend to retain control of our domestic rate of interest, so that we can keep it as low as suits our own purposes, without interference from the ebb and flow of international capital movements or flights of hot money. Thirdly, whilst we intend to prevent inflation at home, we will not accept deflation at the dictate of influences from outside." Every Chancellor of the Exchequer should heed these words: these policies would have prevented our debacle in the ERM, and saved manufacturing industry from its ongoing destruction. They would also rule out our ever joining the euro.
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4.0 out of 5 stars
A wonderfuly written book on the world's greatest economist., 2 May 2001
By A Customer
Robert Skidelsk's third and final volume of John Maynard Keynes, is beatifully written. Concentrating on all the major aspects of Keynes' last years, including his tract on 'How to pay for the war and the Kingsly Wood Budget, the protracted Lend-lease negotiations, Bretton Woods, and finally the American Loan talks, Skidelski manages to cover all the major events of his subject's final nine years. There are sadly,only passing references to his old Bloomsbury friends,so obviously a feature of the first and second volumes. However this gap is more than made up by the author's inclusion of Keynes' personal dealings with diverse institutions such as Covent Garden, The Arts Council, and Cambridge University. His final chapter on Keynes' wife Lydia is exceptionally touching. I think the most indellible feature of this volume is the admiration that Keynes' contemporaries had for him. The awe and respect, almost to the point of reverence, that the Americans held for him was amazing. Even the British civil servants in the Treasury were spellbound. If there is one criticism for this book, it is in regard to the actual economics described. As an amateur historian i found the economic arguments very difficult to comprehend. Maybe there is no easy way to put down some of the theories, but for the normal reader they are very difficult to take in. My rating for this book is 4 stars, whilst for the three volumes together, undoubtedly 5 stars.
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by Paul Krugman
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