The Economic Consequences of Mr. Keynes

Business history is littered with stories of missed opportunities, of geniuses that never cashed in on their brilliance, of great men who sold themselves short. Apple Computer with its user-friendly operating system, the McDonald brothers of San Bernardino with their fast-food restaurant are two prime examples. This book is about a similar tragedy, but of greater proportion, namely of the failure of a nation to take advantage of a homegrown technology, of a nation that saw its basic research usurped by a competitor. In short, it is the story of the United Kingdom in the latter part of the 19th century and electro-magnetic power. It is the story of a nation that failed to exploit a homegrown technology and consequently sputtered and failed while another (i.e. the United States) prospered. It is the story of the tragedy that was the fall of the British Empire.