Introducing Keynesian Economics

John Maynard Keynes was the most brilliant and infuential economist of the 20th century. His revolutionary treatise written during the Great Depression of the 1930s, "The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money", overturned the conventional free market vision of the time and proposed that a healthy economy and full employment depended on the total spending of consumers, business investors "and" governments. Frightened by mass unemployment, governments throughout the capitalist world pursued Keynesian policies until the late 1970s, when a new economic theory, Monetarism, became fashionable. However, Monetarism was not as successful as its advocates had precdicted, and a Keynesian approach returned to favour. Keynes "remains" the most influential economist of the 20th century. "Introducing Keynesian Economics" lucidly explains the Keynesian revolution and paints a vivid picture of Keynes the man - a brilliant scholar, a colourful member of the Apostles and the Bloomsbury Group, and an open homosexual who later married a ballerina. This book is the ideal introduction to Keynes, for both students and general readers.