As the stock market crash of 1929 plunged the world into turmoil, two men emerged with competing claims on how to restore balance to economies gone awry. John Maynard Keynes, the mercurial Cambridge economist, believed that government had a duty to spend when others would not. He met his opposite in a little-known Austrian economics professor, Friedrich Hayek, who considered attempts to intervene both pointless and potentially dangerous. The battle lines thus drawn, Keynesian economics would dominate for decades and coincide with an era of unprecedented prosperity, but conservative economists and political leaders would eventually embrace and execute Hayek's contrary vision. From their first face-to-face encounter to the heated arguments between their ardent disciples, Nicholas Wapshott in his new book Keynes Hayek: The Clash That Defined Modern Economics unearths the contemporary relevance of Keynes and Hayek, as present-day arguments over the virtues of the free market and government intervention rage with the same ferocity as they did in the 1930s, continuing to define politicians of left and right.

This is the first of a programme of events looking at Keynes and his legacy that will take place in 2012.

Nicholas Wapshott is a prominent British journalist and writer. He was the editor of The Times Saturday edition as well as the founding editor of The Times Magazine.

Fee: £6.00 full / £5.00 concessions.