Robert Skidelsky, John Maynard Keynes: 1883-1946: Economist, Philosopher, Statesman, (London: Penguin, 2013). Skidelsky wrote three biographies of Keynes, published 1983, 1992, and 2000. This is the abridged, single volume version, published in 2013 and running to just over a thousand pages. While the original was researched and written during the Thatcherite and early Blair years, this abridged version comes hot on the heels of Skidelsky’s attempt to defend Keynesian economics in the wake of the 2008 crash. For Skidelsky, 2008 marked the end of the Chicago School Orthodoxy which had eclipsed Keynes since the 70s and 80s. As such, the choices Skidelsky makes of where and what to cut to make this version would be a fruitful if probably intensely boring project. What this essay does argue however is that the contradictions of Skidelsky’s 2013 project reveal the difficulty of biography as polemic.
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Robert Skidelsky, John Maynard Keynes…
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Robert Skidelsky, John Maynard Keynes: 1883-1946: Economist, Philosopher, Statesman, (London: Penguin, 2013). Skidelsky wrote three biographies of Keynes, published 1983, 1992, and 2000. This is the abridged, single volume version, published in 2013 and running to just over a thousand pages. While the original was researched and written during the Thatcherite and early Blair years, this abridged version comes hot on the heels of Skidelsky’s attempt to defend Keynesian economics in the wake of the 2008 crash. For Skidelsky, 2008 marked the end of the Chicago School Orthodoxy which had eclipsed Keynes since the 70s and 80s. As such, the choices Skidelsky makes of where and what to cut to make this version would be a fruitful if probably intensely boring project. What this essay does argue however is that the contradictions of Skidelsky’s 2013 project reveal the difficulty of biography as polemic.