Keynes, the economic consequences of the peace, and popular perceptions of the First World War

This essay examines how Keynes's "The Economic Consequences of the Peace" fits into the context of debates about the construction of the memory of the Great War. It asks: ‘What role did Keynes and The Economic Consequences of the Peace play in the formation of the ‘futility myth’ which dominates British popular perception of the First World War to this day?’

To address this question, this essay, first, outlines the features of the futility myth itself and explores traditional explanations for its origins in the late 1920s. Secondly, it discusses the production and content of "Economic Consequences", before, thirdly, tracing its influence and trying to uncover the connections between the book and myth. This exercise demonstrates three things: that the initial success of Keynes’s book was predominantly concentrated with those pre-disposed to agree with it; that we still need better to understand the shift in public opinion during the 1920s which carried Keynes’s views from controversial to mainstream; and that although we can see that "Economic Consequences" was highly influential in general and must have influenced the construction of the myth in some way, we have no way of either proving the connection or quantifying its impact.