Universal Man: The Lives of John Maynard Keynes - Hardcover

"[A] succinct, lively and well-written biography.... [Reducing the amount written on Keynes] has been done with great elegance and panache by Davenport-Hines, in a volume that will introduce Keynes and his strange world to a new generation of readers."--London Evening Standard

"[Davenport-Hines's] lens is directed not at Keynes the macroeconomist but at Keynes the man himself. Fortunately, the author has a rich and compelling story to tell...non-economists who have never read a Keynes biography and are not looking for lots of technical detail and jargon will find it an absorbing read. Even many economists, like me, are likely to derive some fun and profit from it."--H-Net

"This is an entrancing book, always light but never weightless and I am sure that John Maynard Keynes would have enjoyed it."--The Oldie (UK)

"This book will suit a broad audience wanting to understand Keynes and the period in which he lived."--Library Journal

"[A] gracefully written biography.... This is a delightful, detailed portrait, rich in interesting anecdote and encompassing the entire roster of Keynes's accomplishments."--Publishers Weekly

"Never has the biography of an economist been so gripping, so witty or, indeed, so racy: Keynes had countless flings with men before, as his biographer puts it, 'he got the knack of heterosexuality' and enjoyed a happy marriage."--Daily Mail

"This book is organized in an unusual but very effective way.... The result is that the intellectual, social, professional, and personal aspects of Keynes are described and analyzed both independently and as they interrelated to create a complex and brilliant thinker. This is a splendid biography that will fascinate the general reader and give new insight to the scholar. Highly recommended."--Choice

"Quite short, readable and a lot of fun in a rather tawdry sort of way, it is the ideal companion for a weekend break or a short holiday. Certainly it is the best biography now available for noneconomists." --Wall Street Journal

"A biography of John Maynard Keynes without the economics may seem like Hamlet without the prince. But Richard Davenport-Hines has set out to write such a book, and the result is utterly absorbing.... Davenport-Hines manages to pick out little-known stories, brilliant details and curiosities, relayed with affection.... [An] accomplished biography." --Economist

"With wit and grace, as well as a good deal of scholarly digging, the author looks at Keynes in seven distinct but overlapping guises.... [I]t is always, in Davenport-Hines's hands, a story told in an incisive and thoughtful way.... The book conveys its own vision of this wholly extraordinary and undeniably idiosyncratic figure with persuasive artistry and conviction"--Financial Times

John Maynard Keynes (1883-1946) was the twentieth century's most influential economist. His ideas inspired Franklin D. Roosevelt to launch the New Deal and instructed Western nations on how to ward off revolutionary unrest, economic instability, high unemployment, and social dissolution. Keynes was nothing less than the Adam Smith of his time: his The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Moneybecame as important in the twentieth century as Smith's The Wealth of Nations was in the eighteenth. Now, in the long wake of the 2008 global economic collapse, Keynesian economics is once again shaping our world.
In Universal Man, acclaimed historian Richard Davenport-Hines offers the first biography of Keynes that reveals the man in full. Like many Englishmen of his class and era, Keynes compartmentalized his life. Accordingly, Davenport-Hines treats Keynes in turn as a youthful prodigy, a powerful government official, an influential public man, a bisexual living in the shadow of Oscar Wilde's persecution, a devotee of the arts, and an international statesman of worldwide renown. Delving into Keynes's experiences and thought, Davenport-Hines shows us a man who was equally at ease socializing with the Bloomsbury Group as he was persuading heads of state to adopt his policies. Through Davenport-Hines' nuanced portrait, we come to understand not just the most enduringly influential economist of the modern era, but one of the most gifted and vital men of our times: a disciplined logician with a capacity for glee who persuaded people, seduced them, subverted old ideas, and installed new ones.
Engaging, learned, and sparkling with wit and insight, Universal Man is the perfect match for its brilliant subject.