The Economic Consequences of the Peace

By: John Maynard Keynes

The Economic Consequences of the Peace (1919) is a book written and published by John Maynard Keynes. Keynes attended the Versailles Conference as a delegate of the British Treasury and argued for a much more generous peace. It was a best seller throughout the world and was critical in establishing a general opinion that the Versailles Treaty was a "Carthaginian peace". It helped to consolidate American public opinion against the treaty and involvement in the League of Nations. The perception by much of the British public that Germany had been treated unfairly in turn was a crucial factor in public support for appeasement. The success of the book established Keynes' reputation as a leading economist especially on the left. When Keynes was a key player in establishing the Bretton Woods system in 1944, he remembered the lessons from Versailles as well as the Great Depression. The Marshall Plan after Second World War is a similar system to that proposed by Keynes in The Economic Consequences of the Peace. The book was released in late 1919 and became an immediate bestseller on both sides of the Atlantic: it was released in the US in 1920. The scathing sketches of Wilson, Lloyd George and Clemenceau proved to be very popular and the work established Keynes' reputation with the public as a leading economist. In six months, the book had sold 100,000 copies with translations into 12 languages. It restored Keynes' reputation with the Bloomsbury Group which had been tarnished by his work for the treasury during the war. Keynes returned to Cambridge to work as an economist where he was regarded as the leading student of Alfred Marshall.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1463561490
• ISBN13: 9781463561499
• Release Date: June 2011
• Publisher: CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform
• Length: 154 Pages
• Weight: 0.64 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.3" x 6.0" x 9.0"