****** - Verified Buyer
4.5
Any book about JVR is bound to be both controversial and in places difficult. This one is no exception. There is also some unevenness in style, perhaps because some parts are expanded versions of papers, others written more or less for this book alone. Read carefully and taken as a whole, however, the book traces out rather neatly the development of JVR's views whilst not ignoring the contradictions and gaps which had to be resolved and filled before her mature understanding more or less successfully integrated the three sources of inspiration on which she drew - Marshall, Keynes and Classical economics (Marx & Ricardo by way of Kalecki & Sraffa). An impressive and balanced antidote to the hostility towards her that is almost always latent in writing about her; and a useful example of why she was right to say that the value of studying economics lies not in receiving ready-made answers to economic questions, but in order to avoid being deceived by economists.
