Zachary D. Carter, The Price of Peace **** 1/2

The Price of Peace is advertised as a biography of John Maynard Keynes, which make is surprising when Keynes dies about two-thirds of the way through. It would perhaps be more accurate to call it a biography of Keynesian economics; the final third shows how economists of all stripes absorbed Keynes' ideas.

In the early parts of the book, I felt like the author was assuming we were familiar with Keynes' thought or had read the 30 volumes of his Collected Writings. Over time, though, I grew to appreciate Carter's clear summaries and how they showed where Keynes' ideas came from and how they evolved. He always teases out their implications.

For example, I always associated Keynes with the idea that governments should run deficits during recessions as a way of stimulating the economy. That is indeed one of Keynes' innovations. The Price of Peace taught me how this principle undermined previous economic orthodoxy (by focusing on demand rather than supply), how it fits into Keynes' worldview (which tried to balance a conservative view of property rights with a liberal view of social organization), and how it has been co-opted by economic theories that differ widely from Keynes' own.

The most fundamental Keynesian idea is that markets are not naturally occurring phenomena that automatically correct themselves, but are created and managed by governments. For any given economic issue in a society, there are multiple ways to ameliorate them, each of which favors different segments of society. In other words, economics is not a neutral science or toolset but rather is inherently tied up in political questions.

Carter presents Keynes is a sympathetic light and interprets his ideas generously. His descriptions of competing frameworks seems fair even if he clearly disagrees with them. The final chapter, though, is a paean to Keynesianism as "liberal internationalism" that blames all our current woes on neoliberalism. Someday, I would like to read a more detailed book about Keynes and His Critics.

I also enjoyed how the book told the story of the World Wars from an entirely economic point of view. Nothing about the Somme but plenty about how the Allies managed the world supply of wheat and their debts to each other.

Junichiro Tanizaki, The Makioka Sisters **** 1/2

Split the difference between Jane Austen and Leo Tolstoy, then filter it through a Japanese attention to tradition and class. The primary concern of The Makioka Sisters is finding a husband for the third sister Yukiko while fretting about the dalliances of the fourth sister Taeko. So far so Austen. The story takes place in Osaka in the years immediately preceding the Second World War; dinner conversations hint at the looming crisis in Europe and the ongoing "China Incident." The characters are concerned about tradition, but we readers know that big changes are on the way very soon. (The story ends in April 1941.)

The characters are very well drawn, especially those of the four sisters, and the milieu feels authentic. The plot is fairly repetitive, consisting of repeated miai (matchmaking dinners) for Yukiko interspersed with questionable behavior from Taeko, but the thoughts and feelings of the characters are distinct enough each time to keep things interesting.

P.S. As a digestif, I watched the 1983 Kon Ichikawa film version. Not surprisingly, the film version compresses Yukiko's many miai into a couple and loses much of the subtle character work. Surprisingly, the film leaves out the most dramatic events (the flood, the critical illness, the pregnancy). It looks beautiful, especially the ladies' kimonos, but feels rushed to someone who just finished the 500-page book. Taeko suffers most in the transition; she comes across as merely petulant. The film adds erotic tension between Yukiko and Teinosuke, which gives their characters additional shading. The actress playing Yukiko (Sayuri Yoshinaga) conveys a lot about this enigmatic character with just her facial expressions. I'm not sure whether the film would stand alone, but it worked as an adaptation for readers of the novel.