The biography as Economics textbook.

For the non-specialist, the intricacies of modern economic theory can seem as arcane as medieval theology, and certainly Lord Skidelsky devotes scores of pages to matters I haven't thought about since I was in a student in "Macroeconomics 201" 30 years ago. Fortunately, it's possible to skim over those parts and still come away with a very favorable impression of this heavy tome. Skidelsky's gift is that he is convincing both as an interpreter of Keynesian economics, AND as a guide to the Bloomsbury-ian biographical details of a very complicated man.

For my own interests, I'm glad that I now understand a little bit more of the surface details of Keynes's "General Theory". (Just don't ask me to give a lecture on it!) Certainly there are lessons to be learned for those people interested in 20th - and 21st - century economics. But Skidelsky also deals masterfully with the sensitve and complex personal life of the great economist. What I was most fascinated with here is how important for Keynes was his surprising relationship and happy marriage to Russian ballerina Lydia Lopokova. There aren't too many satifying marriages in 20th century intellectual history, but this was one of them! (All the more intriguing in that for the first 38 years of his life, the primary romantic and sexual orientation of Keynes was homosexual.) ( )