About the Book
The Economic Consequences of the Peace is one of the most famous books in the history of economic thought. It is also one of the most polemical. Published as a response to what Keynes saw as the grave errors of the Treaty of Versailles, the book predicted that war reparations and other harsh terms imposed on Germany would lead to its collapse, which in turn would lead to devastating consequences for Europe and the wider world. Predictions that we now know to have been all too accurate. Keynes's Economic Consequences of the Peace after 100 Years brings together an international team of experts to assess the legacy of Keynes's best-selling work. It compiles a series of wide-ranging chapters, exploring the varied influence of his ideas and policy contributions. Written in an accessible style, it recovers the importance of this history and examines the continued relevance of Keynes's controversial book.
Table of Contents:
1. Lessons of Keynes's economic consequences in a turbulent century Patricia Clavin, Giancarlo Corsetti, Maurice Obstfeld and Adam Tooze; 2. The making of a classic: Keynes and the origins of the economic consequences of the peace Michael Cox; 3. 'Keynes's economic consequences (1919): the book and its critics' Peter Clarke; 4. ' Too bad to be true' Swedish economists on Keynes's the economic consequences of the peace and the German reparations, 1919–1929 Benny Carlson and Lars Jonung; 5. Revisionism as intellectual‒political vindication or the French receptions of consequences after the two world wars (1919–46); 6. Between Cambridge, Paris, and Amsterdam Harold James and Andrew Koger; 7. Keynes, the transfer problem, and how to pay for war reparations Simon Hinrichsen; 8. The speculative consequences of the peace Olivier Accominotti, David Chambers and James Ashley Morrison 9. Why was Keynes opposed to reparations and Carthaginian peace? Elise S. Brezis; 10. The one case where economic consequences of the peace mattered: the reshaping of economic mindset in early republican Turkey Eyüp Özveren; 11. Keynes and international trade politics after the first world war Madeleine Dungy; 12. Gold, international monetary corporation, and the tripartite agreement of 1936 Max Harris; 13. Exchange rates, tariffs and prices in 1930s' Britain Jagjit S. Chadha, Jason Lennard, Solomos Solomou and Ryland Thomas; 14. 'Unusual, unstable, complicated, unreliable and temporary' reinterpreting the Ebb and flow of globalization Michael D. Bordo and Catherine R. Schenk; 15. Keynes's arc of discovery: from the economic consequences to Bretton woods David Vines; 16. Keynes, the economic consequences of the peace, and popular perceptions of the first world war' Jonathan Boff.
About the Author :
Patricia Clavin is Professor of Modern History at Oxford University, and a Professorial Fellow of Worcester College. She won the British Academy Medal for her landmark work on the League of Nations and the history of the political economy after 1918. She is a Fellow of the British Academy, a Foreign Member of the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters, and serves on the editorial board of Past & Present. Giancarlo Corsetti is the Pierre Werner Chair and Professor of Economics at European University Institute. He previously taught at Cambridge University, where he was director of the Cambridge-INET institute. Before this, he taught at the Universities of Rome III, Yale and Bologna. He is a leading scholar in international economics and open macro with contributions on currency, financial and sovereign crises, and monetary and fiscal policy. He is a consultant at the European Central Bank and the Bank of England, and a regular visiting professor in central banks and international institutions. He is a fellow of the British Academy. Maurice Obstfeld is the C. Fred Bergsten Senior Fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics and the Class of 1958 Professor of Economics Emeritus at the University of California, Berkeley. From 2015 through 2018, he served as Economic Counsellor and Director of Research at the International Monetary Fund. During 2014 and 2015, he was a Member of President Obama's Council of Economic Advisers. Prior to joining the economics department at Berkeley, he held faculty appointments at Columbia and the University of Pennsylvania, as well as a visiting appointment at Harvard. Adam Tooze is a Professor of History at Columbia University. He teaches and researches widely in the fields of twentieth-century and contemporary history. His books have won him the Leverhulme prize fellowship, the H-Soz-Kult Historisches Buch Prize, the Longman History Today Prize, the Wolfson Prize and the LA Times History Prize. He was shortlisted for the Kirkus review, Duff Cooper and Hessel Tiltman prize and his books have featured in the book of the year lists of the Financial Times, LA Times, Kirkus Review, Foreign Affairs and the Economist.
Review :
'The centenary of Keynes's 1919 classic, Economic Consequences of the Peace, is well worth marking. Keynes's prescient warnings of the dangers of nationalism and failures of international cooperation grow even more salient with the passage of time, and specifically now with Russia's war on Ukraine. The essays here are a reminder of the challenges before us as we seek to achieve a 'non-Carthagianian peace'.' Barry Eichengreen, University of California, Berkeley
'Whether or not Economic Consequences of the Peace was as prescient as is sometimes said, the contributions to this fascinating volume attest that it still offers us innumerable windows on to that crucial conjuncture in history, and to a present that resembles it perhaps more closely than we would like. Keynes' insights, both where he was right and where he was not, clearly continue to stimulate insightful thinking about the political economy of capitalisms past and present.' Geoff Mann, Simon Fraser University
'John Maynard Keynes would be pleased to know that the savage attack he wrote on the peace settlements at the end of the First World War is still, a century later, provoking comment and debate. A distinguished team drawn from the leading experts on the period examine afresh, with insight and learning, the great and difficult questions of how to make peace after a long and exhausting conflict and build a stable new world order. Stimulating, timely and important.' Margaret MacMillan, Emeritus Professor of International History at the University of Oxford
