A Methodological Reading of 'The Economic Consequences of the Peace'

The paper provides a methodological reading of Keynes's "The Economic Consequences of the Peace." Drawing on the close interdependence between theory and method in Keynes's economics, which he considered as a branch of logic, a correct way of reasoning about a complex economic material, we reconstruct the rationale of Keynes's imaginative solutions for the troubles caused by WWI and the Versailles Treaty. We thereby shed light on a method of thinking out the specific problems of international economic relations that Keynes will be consistently using (though adapting it to changing times and circumstances) in his work of international economics and diplomacy. A method which will have a direct influence on the contents of Keynes's Bretton Woods reform plans, and may be of great importance in directing European policy-makers to a structural reform of the continent's economic architecture