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7 - Keynes and Cambridge

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 November 2006

Roger E. Backhouse
Affiliation:
University of Birmingham
Bradley W. Bateman
Affiliation:
Grinnell College, Iowa
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Summary

. . . a tall man with an odd face and a restless eye, walking fast with a slight stoop up the aisle in Hall and holding on to the selvedge of his gown with both hands in front of him; pacing the Back Lawn with a companion in the summer; or hurrying across the Court with his black brief-case on the way to London.

H. G. Durnford, John Maynard Keynes, Cambridge: King’s College, 1949: 16

. . . a kind and even simple heart under that immensely impressive armour of intellect.

V. Woolf, Moments of Being. 2nd edn. London: Hogarth Press, 1985: 198

He was the greatest genius I ever met. His personal magnetism for young men, including myself, was unequalled. His charm, artistry and personality are such as I have never met in anyone else. He combined the scientist, artist and human moralist and man of affairs in a unique manner.

Meade 1990: 251

PREFACE

Keynes's involvement with Cambridge was so deep and had so many dimensions that to write about it is a daunting task. This chapter approaches it from three directions. The first - and probably the simplest - is to provide a concise account of what Keynes did in Cambridge, summarizing those parts of his biography relevant to this topic (pp. 119-24). The second line leads to the issue of how Keynes was perceived by those close to him in Cambridge (pp. 124- 29). The number involved is too large to be dealt with in one paper, and I shall confine my considerations to those colleagues and pupils he was most in contact with. The sources on which this section is based are mainly correspondence and later recollections mainly by economists who were in Cambridge during Keynes's lifetime. Finally, I address a more general, but also more difficult, question, namely what Keynes meant to Cambridge economics, which he endowed with impetus, and of which he is still considered the leading player (pp. 129-32). It also addresses the issue of the so-called Keynesian tradition in economics, as synonymous with public expenditure and the welfare state.

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Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2006

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