In the midst of our current economic crisis, we peer anxiously into an uncertain future and try to put things in perspective by looking to the past. One name above all keeps on cropping up: John Maynard Keynes, who first came to public attention on both sides of the Atlantic in the early 1920s, when the depression in Britain engaged his attention, with the argument that unemployment needed a radical remedy. And then came the great meltdown of 2008, which caused the ideas of the economist to be rediscovered and rehabilitated.

Engaging and authoritative, Keynes explores the often misunderstood man in the context of his own life and times, and explores the significance of his groundbreaking ideas today.