What was Keynes’s best book?

Abstract

Large numbers of books and papers are still being written about Keynes in the opening years of the twenty-first century. As the Introduction to the current volume showed, the name ‘Keynes’ continues to have enormous brand value in economics and has been appropriated by diverse bodies of thought, some of which have only a loose connection with Keynes’s own teaching. How should Keynes’s work now be viewed? What was its purpose and does it remain relevant? From the perspective of the early twenty-first century, what was his most interesting and durable contribution? What was his best book?