The General Theory of Employment, Interest, and Money

Incredibly dense, it is amazing the influence this book has had on economics given how utterly inarticulate Keynes appears to have been. See the image attached for a taste of what you're in for. The Kindle version seems to be missing a lot of diagrams/graphs which may have helped readers grok some of his convoluted explanations.The only reason to read this book is in order to be able to call other people out when they reference it but haven't actually read it.

This edition is very obviously printed on demand by a paperback mill and is actually harder to read because of it! It's filled with grammatical errors and inexplicable changes in font and size. Words are smooshed together and the charts are all pixelated and artifacted. It looks like a meme that your aunt would post on your facebook wall basically. Check out the bizarre acknowledgment at the beginning! Also no publisher is listed anywhere in the book and the printing date is the date I ordered it, haha

I learned more about economics in this one book than in all my other economics reading before, including two courses in college. I didn't understand it all, I didn't want to understand all that about the rate of interest, but I was shocked at Keyne's focus on employment, the propensity to consume, the multiplier, and so much more. I thrilled to see the arch of his argument, that the classical theory deals only with the special case of full employment, even assumes it. Actually, I read this twice, the first as part of The Essential Keynes, ed. Skidelsky. The excerpts were so good I wanted to read the whole thing. There's so much more to read. Next, Minsky.

Keynes first published this book in 1936 during the financial depression (1929-1940) that had world wide effects. The ideas presented at that time are applicable to the present income disparity seen today. It should be required reading for anyone seriously interested in our present economic situation. This re-publication includes Keynes 'The Economic Consequences of the Peace (1919), a criticism of the Treaty following the First World War.

Since there are so many editions floating around I finally managed to find the one pictured on its Wikipedia page, which is from 2007. This is a wonderful edition that is not abridged and contains a very important introduction by Paul Krugmann which does a great job summarizing and noting the limitations of the text. Keynes began an interesting period for economists by essentially using a guess-tamated form of Sensitivity Analysis. What I mean by this is you have a system of many variables and after many simulations and variations you can determine which variable has more impact on the system. What Keynes did here was isolate and focus on the variable of labor and its demand. To him there was no way for monetary policy to get out of the rut since with interest rates so low, you can't throw more money at the problem. It's like trying to save a painting from a fire only to throw water and rub off the paint with a towel. We also have his ideas on interest, wages, and of course sticky prices. This is somewhat of an interesting idea that is similar to Einstein's theory that rigid bodies or instantaneous transmission cannot occur. In so doing rather than straight lines used in typical economics advocating linearity, reality is of course more complex with its nonlinearity. Most people shy away from such thoughts and models as Keynes did as well. Another wonderful treat is his view of the psychological basis for trade and the market. Lately people have been seeking to find ways to understand, if not find a breakthrough to beat, the market. Keynes provides an interesting metaphor for investing that is mentioned in "Random Walk through Wall Street" by Burton Malkiel known as Castles in the Air. When we seek invest in something, we might as well try to beat rather than follow the crowd. In so doing we begin to build our castle and it rises up as others begin to pour into the portfolio we have privately setup for ourselves. It then is not unusual to know that it takes a lot of force to maintain such a castle. So when it's time to abandon it, you leave. In modern terms this is simply predicting and executing momentum strategies. In other words, buy now so that others have to pay more, of which you'll sell even greater.Overall it is a great and do hope that an authoritative edition comes out with a reflection on the 2008 Crisis. The edition I purchased has much optimism (ironically) of how we wouldn't fall from the Great Moderation. The language is terse and formal and just taking ECON101 is not enough to save you but the journey is well worth it. It put to rest much of the dribble that many accuse Keynes of doing. Most of the negative assertions are due many who haven't read the book but read a snip of an excerpt of a blog which relayed the thoughts during an interview of a former banker on the illegitimacy of Keynes on Fox News while given 5 seconds to respond.

Bought this as we are in a keynesian moment with the economy.Have always taken an interest in business and economics so thought would have a read .Basically it is very interesting but can be hard work so have skipped some parts but feel I have got the overall feel for the arguments made.To me the end book Consequences of the Peace is the most interesting as also took an interest in the origins of WW1 and WW2 and found this an excellent read let’s you know on so many levels how we got here politically etc.

For a general reader like me it was a genuine exciting experience, written in very accessible prose,in relatively short chapters. The impact on me was of attending a series of lectures, brimming with ideas.

I have not finished the book yet. The problem I ran into is that the analysis is rather mechanistic. I can cope with the maths, as I am an engineer, but am not sure that treating an economy as a mechanism is the right way to go about the job. Obviously, the sums have to add up, in the sense of balancing accounts, and there are statistics which can be helpful in describing what is going in the economy. Keynes was quite an expert on statistics, I understand.

many words are missing spaces in-between so you really do struggle to read this and have to double-check the meaning of almost every sentence.

Great book but it is full of typos and bad formatted! It is already a challenging read, though enjoyable, without them. I understand that it's d* cheap but that is not an excuse to let this sort of work to be published this way. It is a true shame on whoever authorized its listing.