Keynes: Contemporary Responses to the General Theory (Key Issues (Bristol, England), No. 21.)

Keynes' General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money (published in February 1936) is probably the most influential and controversial economics book of the twentieth century. Keynes claimed to have undermined the foundations of orthodox economics and to have developed a radically new way of thinking about unemployment.

This volume brings together forty of the reviews published before the end of 1936, showing how a wide range of economists and political and literary figures responded to the book. It shows a variety and intensity of the reactions evoked by Keynes. Because they are all very early reviews, they antedate the articles (notably by J. R. Hicks) that appeared early in 1937 and which provided the framework (the so-called IS-LM model) through which economists have come to interpret Keynes' ideas. Here we have perspectives on Keynesian economics that are untainted by the work of subsequent interpreters.