From The State of Opinion almost immediately after its ratification, it became clear that the Treaty of Versailles, ending World War I, was at least partly unworkable-and in this 1922 work, famed economist John Maynard Keynes dissected the problems he saw as the Treaty of Versailles was being put into practice. In what he called a sequel to his 1919 book The Economic Consequences of the Peace, Keynes discusses: The debate over German reparations, The legality of occupying Germany east of the Rhine, ,The division of reparations among the allies, How to best handle inter-ally debt, etc.
“But this book is strictly what it represents itself to be—a Sequel; I might almost have said an Appendix. I have nothing very new to say on the fundamental issues. Some of the Remedies which I proposed two years ago are now everybodyʼs commonplaces, and I have nothing startling to add to them. My object is a strictly limited one, namely to provide facts and materials for an intelligent review of the Reparation Problem as it now is.”
—Keynes