This is vol. 2 of Skidelsky's Keynes biography (any sign of vol. 3?). It is a very enjoyable (and exhaustive) account of the most productive professional years (Bretton Woods aside) of one of the great figures of the 20th century. Keynes was the son of Victorian intellectual academic bougiousie; a star of the public school system; trained in mathematics and economics (student of Marshall); student of philosophy, then a bureaucrat in academia and government, becoming an expert in public finance as a high-ranking Treasury official during WWI; a traveller in artistic circles (later a benefactor), part of the Bloomsbury group (intimate with Duncan Grant, Virginia Woolf, etc. (to differing degrees, of course)); statistician/philosopher (his first major published work was "A Treatise on Probability"); pamphleteer ("Economic Consequences of the Peace," etc.); publisher/editor for both the popular and academic press; institutional investor; currency speculator; husband to a Russian ballet dancer; and most influential economist of the 20th century. Keynes would not be possible today.

The one drawback to the Skidelsky book is that it can be slow going. Those with no background in economics should be prepared to skim sections (or work hard). If you're already familiar with the difference between Ricardo and Malthus, and how their thinking carried through Jevons, Marshall, and Marx, and can follow arguments on gold standard vs. floating exchange rates, then you should be able to breeze through.

The book deals mainly with two issues. First, why did people believe in the idea of state intervention (or collectivism, as Skidelsky calls it). Second, is state intervention good or bad. I argue that the first part is better than the second.

I am uncertain whether to recommend this book. One the one hand, it is highly readable, the scope is very large, and many of the arguments are important. On the other hand, it is not novel, systematic or rigorous. In sum, this is a good book if you want a relatively short, easy and good overview of some of the issues in modern political economy. However, if you want a complete academic treatment of state intervention your desire is better served by other books.