Exploring the life of Karl Marx, this biography delves into his personal circumstances and everyday experiences, moving past simplistic portrayals of him as either a political visionary or a totalitarian figure. It aims to provide a nuanced understanding of his political ideology, revealing the complexities of his character and the context in which he developed his revolutionary ideas.
John Maynard Keynes is arguably the most important and influential economist of the twentieth century, and stands alongside Adam Smith and Karl Marx as one of the most famous economic thinkers of all time. Keynes's radical reassessment of the accepted principles of economics led to new ways of thinking about how to deal with financial crises and economic depressions, and encouraged governments to increase levels of state investment to create economic growth. Vincent Barnett argues controversially that allowing psychology a much greater role within economics was a main but often-neglected feature of The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money, and that Keynes's policy writings were more concerned with the Britain's national interest than is sometimes recognised. The result is a concise new biography that is both intellectually rigorous and easily accessible to students and anyone else seeking to understand the life and work of England's foremost economist.