John Maynard Keynes

Most of the essays in this book were first collected and published in 1933, when Keynes had reached a turning point in what had by then become a highly successful career as an academic economist, as an official economic advisor, opponent of the reparations imposed on Germany, and critic of the orthodox economic policies of British governments. Before devoting himself fully to the final stages of his journey towards the General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money, Keynes put together these examples of one of his favourite literary genres, the psychological portrait and biographical sketch. With the additions made in 1951 and 1972, the book now contains almost all of Keynes's biographical writings: his savage portraits of the architects of the treaty of Versailles and sketches of other politicians, including Asquith, Balfour, Bonar Law, and Churchill; some classic accounts of the lives of economists, including Malthus, Jevons, Marshall, Edgeworth, and Foxwell; a pair of autobiographical memoirs; a short study of Newton; and many acute and affectionate character sketches of friends.Keynes shows himself here as a literary artist whose work does not suffer by comparison with that of his two friends within the Bloomsbury Group, Virgina Woolf and Lytton Strachey.

From one of the most influential economists of the modern era, Keynes and his "General Theory" shaped economic thought and government policies for decades to come. Out of this magnum opus arose the Keynesian school of economics. Keynes argues that the level of employment in a modern economy was determined by three factors: the marginal propensity to consume (income that people chose to spend on goods and services), the marginal efficiency of capital (the rate used to see whether investments are worthy) and the rate of interest. This work has enormous implications to the present day in understanding the policies and that have shaped the current environment."The General Theory is nothing less than an epic journey out of intellectual darkness. That, as much as its continuing relevance to economic policy, is what makes it a book for the ages. Read it, and marvel." - Paul Krugman, Professor of Economics, winner of the 2008 Nobel prize in economics.

This book, is devoted to the need for stable currency as the essential foundation of a healthy world economy. Describing the various effects of unstable currency on investors, business people, and wage earners, Keynes recommends the implementation of policies that aim at achieving stability of the commodity value of the dollar rather than the gold value. Keynes's brilliant, clear analysis of the world monetary situation at the beginning of the twentieth century, with his many suggestions and his masterful elucidation of economic principles, stands as a vital primer for anyone interested in developing a better understanding of basic economics and its sociopolitical implications.