All-TIME 100 Nonfiction Books

The General Theory

Perhaps the most topical book for our economic situation these days was published in 1936. John Maynard Keynes’ The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money is an attempt to explain why unemployment can remain high long after a recession is technically over. Sound familiar? Keynes, a British economist, argues that high unemployment is a result of the typical drop-off in investment that happens during an economic pullback; governments can therefore boost employment by investing in their country’s economy at a time when companies are unwilling to take risks. Contemporary observers may think of Keynes as the Democrats’ favorite economist, but The General Theory contains arguments for plenty of Republican pet projects. (Keynes was no foe of tax cuts, for example.) The book contains numerous lengthy equations and can be tough to read, but it also has linguistic flourishes a novelist would envy. Keynes ends on this beauty: “But, soon or late, it is ideas, not vested interests, which are dangerous for good or evil.”

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