The warrior economist

Such recriminations miss Keynes's own tactical misfires. Keynes attached "enormous significance to the use of language as an element of power," explains Skidelsky, yet at times his eloquence backfired. In an impassioned speech to his own Labour government, Keynes convinced Britain's leaders that "justice" would only be served if the United States offered the British government a massive grant to compensate for Britain's wartime sacrifices.

Later, when Keynes sought to compromise and move toward a loan in the face of a tough American negotiating team, he found his own government - still enamoured with the "sweet breath of justice" Keynes had promised - unwilling to budge. As he put it, Keynes found himself fighting "a war on two fronts."

Keynes experienced additional frustrations at the landmark Bretton Woods conference of 1944, which brought together 44 countries to establish rules for the global monetary system and create the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank. Harry Dexter White skillfully stage-managed the conference, marginalizing Keynes from key decisions.

The Americans controlled the allocation of voting rights in the IMF and established the US dollar as the key currency in the new global system. At the inaugural meeting of the IMF and World Bank - held in Savannah, Ga., in 1946 - Keynes presciently warned that putting the institutions in Washington would leave them vulnerable to US political domination. But again he was overruled.

"I came to Savannah to meet the world," Keynes later complained bitterly, "and all I met was a tyrant." Ultimately, Bretton Woods solidified the new balance of power in the global economy, with the United States displacing Britain.

"Like any human bridge between eras," writes Skidelsky, "Keynes found himself in the position of being denounced as a revolutionary by the old while being accused of betraying the revolution by the young."

Indeed, the economist's frequent compromises in his official duties left some of his followers wondering if the strong-willed economist had discarded his old principles. But whether real or perceived, Keynes's inconsistencies can best be understood in light of his unwavering devotion to Britain, for which he was willing to make any intellectual or even personal sacrifice.

Weakened by longtime ailments, Keynes worked far longer than he should have, often dictating from bed during his final years. He died on Easter Sunday in 1946 - barely two months after the Savannah meeting. As close friend and fellow British economist Lionel Robbins wrote to Keynes's widow Lydia, "Maynard [gave] his life for his country, as surely as if he had fallen on the field of battle."

In the introduction, Skidelsky explains the motive behind his massive study: "If this biography has rescued Keynes from the economists, and placed him in the world of history where he properly belongs, it will have achieved its aim." By any measure, Skidelsky has succeeded.

Carlos Lozada is the associate editor of Foreign Policy magazine.

John Maynard Keynes: Fighting for Freedom, 1937-1946

By Robert Skidelsky

Viking

580 pp., $34.95

Page: 1 | 2