# The Economic Consequences of the Peace — Character guide

> Key figures in The Economic Consequences of the Peace by John Maynard Keynes.

- [Germany](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_economic_consequences_of_the_peace_se/characters/germany.md): Germany enters the book already prostrate — its people accused of overturning the foundations on which everyone lived, yet also bound to France, Italy, and Austria by what Keynes calls hidden psychic and economic bonds. 
- [Unknown](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_economic_consequences_of_the_peace_se/characters/unknown_narrator.md): He moves between London's oblivious prosperity and continental Europe's rumblings, insisting England stands outside Europe while Europe is solid with herself. He admits the liberties of a historian, touching questions of
- [Clemenceau](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_economic_consequences_of_the_peace_se/characters/clemenceau.md): Clemenceau leads the treaty's harshest provisions, opening from extreme positions on the prudent assumption that compromise will follow. He earns a reputation for moderation by theatrically discarding his own ministers' 
- [The Allies](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_economic_consequences_of_the_peace_se/characters/the_allies.md): Bound by prudence and magnanimity to reestablish life and heal wounds, the Allies instead let France take the lead in framing extreme proposals. British and American critics grow slack wherever their own interests are un
- [Europe](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_economic_consequences_of_the_peace_se/characters/europe.md): Europe is personified as one body: France, Germany, Italy, Austria, Holland, Russia, Romania, and Poland flourishing together, rocking together in war, and liable to fall together. Its population exceeds what can be fed,
- [The Germans](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_economic_consequences_of_the_peace_se/characters/the_germans.md): Keynes grants them the initiating guilt — moved by insane delusion and reckless self-regard, they overturned the foundations on which all lived. Yet he refuses to let that guilt justify a peace that would impair the deli
- [Mr. Lloyd George](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_economic_consequences_of_the_peace_se/characters/lloyd_george.md): Lloyd George sits among the four men Keynes calls the microcosm of mankind, representing a Britain that still stands outside Europe and cannot feel its tremors. His position is torn between an electorate hungry for Germa
- [Wilson](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_economic_consequences_of_the_peace_se/characters/wilson.md): Wilson stands as one of the four figures in whom the world's hopes and purposes concentrated during the first months of 1919. His task was not only to honor engagements and satisfy justice but to reestablish life and hea
- [M. Klotz](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_economic_consequences_of_the_peace_se/characters/m_klotz.md): Klotz belongs to the French ministerial cohort whose extreme initial proposals Clemenceau could later discard with an air of impartial moderation. His fixation on what Germany could be made to pay embodies the French tac
- [The French](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_economic_consequences_of_the_peace_se/characters/the_french.md): In Keynes's telling, the French took the lead in the provisions he examines, making the most definite and extreme proposals first as a matter of tactics. Clemenceau gained a reputation for moderation by throwing over his
- [Mr. Hoover](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_economic_consequences_of_the_peace_se/characters/mr_hoover.md): Hoover stands for the practical, unglamorous work of keeping Europe fed while the Conference pursued its political aims. Keynes frames the stakes starkly: a continent sick and dying, its population in excess of any avail
- [Sir Eric Geddes](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_economic_consequences_of_the_peace_se/characters/sir_eric_geddes.md): British politician and transport expert at the peace conference.
- [America](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_economic_consequences_of_the_peace_se/characters/america.md): America appears in Keynes's argument as both Europe's lifeline and its blind spot, the source of food on which a shattered continent depends and a nation that, like England, could remain unconscious of the rumblings abro
- [Lenin](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_economic_consequences_of_the_peace_se/characters/lenin.md): Russian revolutionary leader mentioned as a historical figure.
- [Dr. Stamp](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_economic_consequences_of_the_peace_se/characters/dr_stamp.md): British economist involved in reparation calculations.
- [M. Loucheur](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_economic_consequences_of_the_peace_se/characters/m_loucheur.md): French minister of industrial reconstruction.
- [Great Britain](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_economic_consequences_of_the_peace_se/characters/great_britain.md): United Kingdom personified as a national entity.
- [M. René Pupin](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_economic_consequences_of_the_peace_se/characters/m_rene_pupin.md): French economist and statistician cited in the text.
- [M. Dubois](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_economic_consequences_of_the_peace_se/characters/m_dubois.md): French delegate on the Reparation Commission.
- [The Reparation Commission](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_economic_consequences_of_the_peace_se/characters/the_reparation_commission.md): Summoned into being by the Treaty to fix what Germany owes, the Commission inherits a continent that is sick and dying, its transport ruptured and its population too large for the livelihood left to it. Its task is to ho

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