ABSTRACT
In 1914, John Maynard Keynes celebrated his 32nd birthday. On September 28, the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria in Sarajevo became the pretext for the outbreak of First World War. Keynes witnessed the end of nineteenth-century civilization. His place of observation was nothing less than London, the hub of world trade, finance, and industry. At first sight, Keynes's views on world history seem to be loaded with pessimism, the same pessimism attributed to Malthus. Humankind was crossing the threshold of an era burdened with tensions, and even though state intervention might to some extent relieve the situation, the tragic core of the "economic problem" would remain untouched. The Era of Abundance began in the seventeenth century but reached its peak during late nineteenth century. From his early writings, Keynes's conception of the major stages undergone by human economy remains basically unchanged.
