ABSTRACT
The Economic Consequences of the Peace was a genial exercise in applied economics and a polemical masterpiece generating much of its power through its fusion of political and psychological sense with economics. Its polemics artfully thrashed the conference leaders Woodrow Wilson, Lloyd George, and Georges Clemenceau, whom Keynes, averting his attention from a vengeful public opinion in their countries, made more responsible for the horridness of the peace than they deserved. The Economic Consequences served perfectly to establish Keynes in the context of postwar Britain. It made him splendidly notorious, very nearly on the level with such celebrities as the Prince of Wales, Charlie Chaplin, and Queen Marie of Rumania. In 1922 Keynes was engaged in two journalistic projects for the Guardian, one reporting for £300 on the Genoa Conference, the major event in the year's economic developments, and the other attempting to alleviate the problems that had led to the conference.
