Simply Keynes

Born in Cambridge, England, to an upper-middle-class family, John Maynard Keynes (1883-1946) attended Eton College and King’s College, Cambridge, where he received a BA in mathematics in 1904. From an early age, he evinced an optimism about improving human life and believed in the power of government to change things for the better. During World War I, Keynes served in the Treasury and his success in this role led to his appointment as a representative to the Versailles peace conference in 1919. While this experience was ultimately frustrating and disillusioning, it laid the foundation for his later work during the Great Depression and World War II, when his ideas gained increasing influence and were gradually adopted by economic policymakers throughout the world.

In Simply Keynes, Professor Roger Backhouse provides a comprehensive introduction to Keynes and Keynesianism, arguing that Keynes should be seen not only as an economist, but also as a moral philosopher who believed the state had a moral obligation to intervene for the greater good. Beginning with the economist’s early life and the context in which his ideas arose, Professor Backhouse chronicles the transformation of economics in the so-called “Age of Keynes,” the opposition that arose in the 1970s, and the revival of Keynesianism following the 2007-08 global financial crisis.

For 100 years, the ideas of John Maynard Keynes have been central to discussions and decision-making about economics, free markets, and the role of government in capitalist systems. With admirable concision and clarity, Simply Keynes allows the lay reader to understand not only the critical importance of Keynes’s ideas in recent history, but also their continued relevance in our own day and into the future.

About the author

Roger Backhouse is Professor of the History and Philosophy of Economics at the University of Birmingham in the U.K. and Erasmus University Rotterdam in the Netherlands. He has published extensively on the history of modern economics, including The History of Economics: A Course for Students and Teachers (2017), Capitalist Revolutionary: John Maynard Keynes (2011), and The History of the Social Sciences since 1945 (2010). He is a Fellow of the British Academy and has held a Research Fellowship at the London School of Economics.