The Price of Peace - Zachary D. Carter

The Price of Peace

By Zachary D. Carter

  • Release Date: 2020-05-19
  • Genre: Economics
Score: 4.5
4.5
From 58 Ratings

Description

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • An “outstanding new intellectual biography of John Maynard Keynes [that moves] swiftly along currents of lucidity and wit” (The New York Times), illuminating the world of the influential economist and his transformative ideas

“A timely, lucid and compelling portrait of a man whose enduring relevance is always heightened when crisis strikes.”—The Wall Street Journal


WINNER: The Arthur Ross Book Award Gold Medal • The Hillman Prize for Book Journalism
FINALIST: The National Book Critics Circle Award • The Sabew Best in Business Book Award
NAMED ONE OF THE TEN BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY PUBLISHERS WEEKLY AND ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY Jennifer Szalai, The New York TimesThe EconomistBloombergMother Jones

At the dawn of World War I, a young academic named John Maynard Keynes hastily folded his long legs into the sidecar of his brother-in-law’s motorcycle for an odd, frantic journey that would change the course of history. Swept away from his placid home at Cambridge University by the currents of the conflict, Keynes found himself thrust into the halls of European treasuries to arrange emergency loans and packed off to America to negotiate the terms of economic combat. The terror and anxiety unleashed by the war would transform him from a comfortable obscurity into the most influential and controversial intellectual of his day—a man whose ideas still retain the power to shock in our own time.

Keynes was not only an economist but the preeminent anti-authoritarian thinker of the twentieth century, one who devoted his life to the belief that art and ideas could conquer war and deprivation. As a moral philosopher, political theorist, and statesman, Keynes led an extraordinary life that took him from intimate turn-of-the-century parties in London’s riotous Bloomsbury art scene to the fevered negotiations in Paris that shaped the Treaty of Versailles, from stock market crashes on two continents to diplomatic breakthroughs in the mountains of New Hampshire to wartime ballet openings at London’s extravagant Covent Garden. 

Along the way, Keynes reinvented Enlightenment liberalism to meet the harrowing crises of the twentieth century. In the United States, his ideas became the foundation of a burgeoning economics profession, but they also became a flash point in the broader political struggle of the Cold War, as Keynesian acolytes faced off against conservatives in an intellectual battle for the future of the country—and the world. Though many Keynesian ideas survived the struggle, much of the project to which he devoted his life was lost. 

In this riveting biography, veteran journalist Zachary D. Carter unearths the lost legacy of one of history’s most fascinating minds. The Price of Peace revives a forgotten set of ideas about democracy, money, and the good life with transformative implications for today’s debates over inequality and the power politics that shape the global order.

LONGLISTED FOR THE CUNDILL HISTORY PRIZE

Reviews

  • Fascinating life, informative story

    5
    By K in Cal
    This book gives an interesting view in to Keynes fascinating life - he lived among the greatest artists, intellectuals, financiers and politicians of his day, and somehow managed to be both glamorous and idealistic the whole time. At least as fascinating is the long-standing influence of Keynes’ ideas, which the book traces through the financial crisis of 2008 and its aftermath. A great read- enjoyable and enlightening
  • A Find for a Non-Economist

    5
    By Alan Ostroff
    I only dabble in trying to to understand economics - this book gave significant clarification to an economist whose influence I was always curious about, but whose work seemed for so long to be too elusive for me to internalize in my thoughts. It’s very well written, with painstaking application of theory to the real world. My only criticism is that the last sections become completely US-centric, barely mentioning the progress of Keynesianism even through his home, the UK, after WWII. I still would recommend it to anyone with an interest in the application of ecomomic theory to history and politics.
  • I needed to know who he was

    5
    By cheeterah
    Zach Carter fulfilled my wishes and more. I now know who Keynes was and how he influenced US and european economies during the last centiury. I also learned about the foundations of neoliberalism and how this ideology has brought us so low in the 21st century.
  • Must read

    5
    By TTFos
    Riveting biography, economic and political history all in one. A triumph.