Keynes’s activities as Britain’s REVIEWS principal international Treasury negotiator after 1940 took him to Washington (in 1943), Atlan- tic City and Bretton Woods (in Liberal pragmatist 1944), Washington again (in 1945) and Savannah (in 1946). Donald Markwell: John Maynard Keynes and International Keynes had been transformed from an outspoken critic of Relations: Economic Paths to War and Peace (Oxford his own government (as well University Press, 2006) The move as the international economic and political system) – someone Reviewed by Ed Randall from out- who felt impelled to leave the government service (in 1919) sider to – to the chief negotiator of the his is a book that will his economic theorising and insider had British national interest and reward liberals (and many his polemical writing about principal exponent of his own Tothers) who are interested economic policy. Markwell’s happened brand of internationalism at the in Keynes’s contribution to the book, subtitled Economic Paths international top table. understanding and the shaping to War and Peace, takes the in a little The move from outsider to of international relations in the reader from Keynes’s early insider had happened in a lit- twentieth century. However, and – in Markwell’s view – over twenty tle over twenty years. It also Donald Markwell also has a largely uncritical acceptance years. It seemed to result directly from grander and more demand- of the classical liberal faith Keynes’s criticisms of conven- ing ambition, ‘to facilitate the in free trade as the universal also seemed tional economic theory, and of assessment, from time to time, antidote to war, to his deeply the foreign and economic policy of the contemporary relevance disillusioning role as a British to result nostrums supported by the Brit- of Keynes’s ideas to evolv- government adviser at the Paris ish establishment, as well as his ing circumstances’ (p. 5). That Peace Conference at the end directly from brilliant and sustained advocacy grander aim is one to which I of the First World War. It was Keynes’s of alternatives. The latter placed will briefly return at the end of an experience that gave rise greater emphasis on institution- this review. to his fierce and very public criticisms of building, international coop- Markwell is a political sci- denunciation of international eration and rehabilitating and entist with an abiding interest statesmen and the conference’s conventional restoring (rather than punish- in economic thought and its main product, the Treaty of ing) defeated military enemies impact on international rela- Versailles. Readers should be economic than almost any of his peers and tions. He was a Fellow at New aware that while Markwell theory, and academic rivals. It is hard to and Merton Colleges, Oxford, does not skimp on the evolu- envisage any similarly weighty before taking up a senior aca- tion of Keynes’s ideas about war of the for- academic critic of British pub- demic post at the University of and peace or his changing atti- lic and foreign policy being Western Australia. He has writ- tudes to international relations eign and eco- entrusted with such sweeping ten a study that is both accessible before 1920, he devotes most authority to negotiate on behalf to the general reader and valu- attention to later times, when nomic policy of their country. Felix Frank- able to academic specialists who Keynes’s liberal international- nostrums further (a Supreme Court justice seek expert guidance. Markwell ism – and what Markwell calls who had been present with demonstrates an encyclopaedic his ‘liberal institutionalism’ – supported by Keynes at the Paris Conference) knowledge of Keynes’s writ- became far more nuanced and wrote to him in 1945 about a ings and correspondence, which pragmatic. the British transformation in attitudes that facilitates the reader’s explora- Readers of this book will appeared to reflect and embody tion of the relationship between find themselves on a political establish- Keynes’s ideas and arguments Keynes’s economics, his liberal as well as an intellectual jour- ment, as (made by him behind the scenes internationalism and his myriad ney; it is a journey that finally in Paris and later in public), prescriptions for establishing delivers them – along with well as his ideas that favoured ‘a more and sustaining mutually ben- Keynes – to a time when Key- decent unfolding of world eficial economic and political nes himself played the leading brilliant and affairs’. This general change in interactions between states. British role in defending British beliefs had produced, Frank- The range of Keynes’s writ- interests, obtaining financial sustained furter told Keynes: ‘a … perme- ings on international affairs aid from the US for post-war advocacy of ating and informed realisation is quite remarkable, but it is reconstruction and shaping the … of the extraordinary dif- also deeply entwined with international financial system. alternatives. ficulties of peacefully evolving 44 Journal of Liberal History 61 Winter 2008–09 REVIEWS cooperation but that he also could not be reconciled with ‘acknowledged the realities theory, and his prioritising of power’. A key feature of of British national interests Keynes’s diatribe against the even when that entailed some Versailles treaty (in Economic dilution of liberal ideals. For Consequences of the Peace), and Keynes, the announcement of the political manoeuvring long-term goals – economic that he believed made further and political – was one thing, conflict virtually inescapable, whilst the formulation and was his scathing criticism of implementation of detailed Woodrow Wilson’s idealism: policy was quite another. Wilson was condemned, in Eco- Keynes famously changed his nomic Consequences of the Peace, views on free trade between as the President who ‘could the wars and proved hard to preach a sermon’ but lacked a label when it came to report- plan to help rebuild Europe. ing his attitudes to war. As his The American President was, in biographer Skidelsky recounts, Keynes’s eyes, so extraordinarily Keynes believed that politi- detached from the requirements cal judgements about war and of effective international nego- peace should not confuse per- tiations that he preferred to ‘do sonal beliefs about the morality nothing that was not just and and horror of war (however right’. Kirshner finds in Mark- strongly held) with the business well’s scholarly exposition of of making policy for the whole Keynes’s changing ideas about of the nation. economics and international It is probably best to describe relations ‘glimpses of a fasci- Keynes as a proponent of a decent world order’. The nating, if not idealistic or even optimistic but uncompromis- change in attitudes toward rela- coherent, Keynesian perspec- ingly pragmatic liberalism and tions between states had, they tive on international relations’. internationalism. His militant both believed, been matched by I share Kirshner’s assessment to optimism and grand vision for the readiness of the victors in a some degree, even if I employ the future – of human socie- world war to be more generous somewhat different language in ties – is most clearly articulated and more realistic about what doing so. Keynes had a strong in an essay that was intended to was needed to establish and sense of direction concerning be widely read: Economic Pos- then maintain the peace than both himself and liberal socie- sibilities for Our Grandchildren national leaders had ever been ties, but he was constantly alert (initially published in 1928, before. to the difficulties of formulat- then reworked and published All this may well make it ing a truly winning case and in two parts in Nation and Ath- appear, as Markwell’s objective creating a feasible plan of action enaeum in October 1930). When seems to be, that Keynes was at that valued liberty whilst rec- times seemed at their hardest his core an idealist-liberal inter- ognising the vulnerabilities of and economic and interna- nationalist, even if his method markets and the dangers that tional developments at their of pursuing international peace brigand states represented to most discouraging, Keynes was and political harmony between international peace, as well as determined to explain why he states had became increasingly to the conditions of their own believed most people would, in sophisticated – i.e. via economic population. the future, be able to live better and political means, rather Keynes was far too con- and more fulfilling lives. than undirected market means. cerned with weighing up dif- He did not set out, in Eco- However, I have to agree with ferent policy goals, and the nomic Possibilities, to minimise another reviewer of Markwell’s relative likelihood of success in what needed to be done to cre- study of Keynes’s approach to pursuing different strategies to ate a more prosperous world for international relations, Jonathan achieve worthwhile ends, to be our grandchildren, but argued Kirshner, who believes that either a dogmatist or an idealist that four factors within our Markwell overplays Keynes’s in the philosophical sense. Two control would shape the lives of liberal idealism. He points out hallmarks of Keynes’s thought, our descendants: our individual that Keynes sought changes in well represented in Markwell’s ability to control population, public attitudes and government study, were his willingness to the strength of our determina- policies to improve the pros- change his mind and his policy tion to avoid war, our capac-