KEYNES IN AMERICA KEYNES, John Maynard.

The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money.

First American edition (includes the Erratum printed on p. 403) of Keynes’ path-breaking work, perhaps the most pervasively influential twentieth-century contribution to the social sciences, responsible for instilling the notion that ‘national budgets are major instruments in a planned economy, that financial booms and slumps are controllable by governments’ (PMM 609). The General Theory caused shock waves at the time. Its revolutionary impact was due in part to the economic circumstances in the 1930s when it was published, specifically the impact of widespread unemployment on public confidence in democratic institutions. Keynes’ work both provided an explanation for the crisis and proposed a solution that made use of existing systems of government, thus constituting a viable alternative to the rise of totalitarian strongmen that contemporaries witnessed in continental Europe.