The last part of Robert Skidelsky's magnificent biography of J.M. Keynes is a tale about the fall of the British Empire with Keynes as one of its most clairvoyant and active go-betweens trying to avoid the disaster. Great-Britain had won the war but it was bankrupt, crushed by its debt contracted to buy US weapons.
This book shows clearly through its analysis of the Bretton-Woods negotiations and the discussions about the conversion of British debt, that the ultimate goal of the US Administration was to get Great-Britain on its knees and to take its place as world leader.
The US preferred an alliance with te Soviet Union against Britain. Their most important negotiator H.D. White was a convinced Soviet spy.
Keynes defended exhaustingly Britain's role in world matters by begging time for a reconversion of the British industry from a war to a civilian economy and for safeguarding its Commomwealth with its preferential tariff and pound sterling payment system.
The humiliatig conditions for its debt conversion imposed by the US would cripple the British economy for years. The suicidal internecine European wars created a new world hegemon: the US.
Before the war, Keynes defended his 'Treatise' policies, but saw them applied in Germany by a very clever economist, Hjalmar Schacht, who also saved the German economy internationally by creating a bilateral trade system.
Prof. Skidelsky shows us also pregnantly the deterioration of Keynes's physical condition, aggravated by his exhausting travels, difficult (empty handed) negotiations and even hard opposition at home when he was in the US.
One could perhaps slightly criticize the exhaustive excerpts of letters or the extremely detailed evolution of the negotiations in Bretton-Woods or about British debt relief. But, all in all, this is a fascinating read.
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