Barbaric gold and civilised banking: Keynes’s Indian Currency and Finance. A view from the South after 100 years

Indian Currency and Finance (ICF), Keynes first book, remains 100 years after its publication, as relevant today as it was remarkable then. It anticipates many of Keynes key ideas now better associated with his Treatise of Money, and his The General Theory of Employment Interest and Money, as well as many of the central ideas of post-Keynesian economics. Issues such as the inherent instability of the banking and currency system and the importance of appropriate regulation to stabilise them, which Keynes addresses in ICF remain on the minds of analysts and policy makers today. It is a brilliant and prescient exposition by the young Keynes and is highly recommended to a contemporary readership.