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The House of Rothschild #1

The House of Rothschild, Vol 1: Money's Prophets, 1798-1848

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In his rich and nuanced portrait of the remarkable, elusive Rothschild family, Oxford scholar and bestselling author Niall Ferguson uncovers the secrets behind the family's phenomenal economic success. He reveals for the first time the details of the family's vast political network, which gave it access to and influence over many of the greatest statesmen of the age. And he tells a family saga, tracing the importance of unity and the profound role of Judaism in the lives of a dynasty that rose from the confines of the Frankfurt ghetto and later used its influence to assist oppressed Jews throughout Europe. A definitive work of impeccable scholarship with a thoroughly engaging narrative, 'The House of Rothschild' is a biography of the rarest kind, in which mysterious and fascinating historical figures finally spring to life.

544 pages, Paperback

First published November 1, 1998

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About the author

Niall Ferguson

78 books2,973 followers
Niall Ferguson is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University, former Laurence A. Tisch Professor of History at Harvard University and current senior fellow at the Center for European Studies at Harvard University, a visiting professor at Tsinghua University, Beijing, and founder and managing director of advisory firm Greenmantle LLC.

The author of 15 books, Ferguson is writing a life of Henry Kissinger, the first volume of which--Kissinger, 1923-1968: The Idealist--was published in 2015 to critical acclaim. The World's Banker: The History of the House of Rothschild won the Wadsworth Prize for Business History. Other titles include Civilization: The West and the Rest, The Great Degeneration: How Institutions Decay and Economies Die and High Financier: The Lives and Time of Siegmund Warburg.

Ferguson's six-part PBS television series, "The Ascent of Money: A Financial History of the World," based on his best-seller, won an International Emmy for best documentary in 2009. Civilization was also made into a documentary series. Ferguson is a recipient of the Benjamin Franklin Award for Public Service as well as other honors. His most recent book is The Square and the Tower: Networks on Power from the Freemasons to Facebook (2018).

(Source: Amazon)

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Displaying 1 - 30 of 96 reviews
Profile Image for Jean.
1,745 reviews761 followers
June 26, 2019
Niall Ferguson is a preeminent historian. This was his first book that helped build his reputation as a meticulous researcher. This is a scholarly work and is not for everyone.

The book is well written and meticulously researched. Ferguson has gone into depth and with great detail in telling the history of the Rothschild family. The author tells the story of a German Jewish family from the ghettoes who rose over many generations to be the most powerful and secretive family held financial institution in the world. At times the book is a bit tedious. Overall, I learned a great amount of most interesting information about finance, as well about the finance of wars. The family are Jewish and experienced extreme anti-Semitism over the centuries. I found the hatred of the Jews in Europe over the centuries shocking. They confined them to walled in ghettoes, made them wear certain markings on their clothing and then about every fifty years they killed them in massive numbers. I found the book fascinating, but it will be a while before I tackle volume two.

I read this as an audiobook downloaded from Audible. The book is twenty-eight hours and eleven minutes. Alexander Adams does an excellent job narrating the book. Alexander Adams is a pseudonym for narrator Grover Gardner. Gardner is an Audie winner and has won eighteen Earphone Awards. He is also Audiophile’s One of the Best Voices of the Century and a winner of the Golden Voice Award.
Profile Image for W. Littlejohn.
Author  28 books170 followers
October 18, 2010
What if someone wrote a book claiming that the development of modern capitalism was the product of a secretive and inbred family of Jews, for half a century the wealthiest men alive, the bankers to every major European monarch, who gained their fortune as war profiteers in the age of Napoloeon and went on to control the international bond market and the currency exchanges of Europe, who pulled the strings of diplomacy and empire throughout the Hundred Years’ Peace when Europe ruled the world, a family whose hundred tentacles still extend, secretive as ever, through the banks and financiers of the world, and who are behind some of the largest and most sinister corporations of the last century, such as Rio Tinto Mining Corporation and De Beers Diamonds? Ha! What kind of neo-Nazi nut case would whip up a conspiracy theory that grandiose and unlikely?!

But this story (which could also be told as a perfect rags-to-riches fairy tale) is actually true, and it is told in compelling and exhaustive detail by Niall Ferguson in this volume and its sequel.

This was Ferguson's first great tour-de-force as a historian, and as such, it is much more detailed and analytical than the grand sweeping narratives of Empire and the Ascent of Money--no, it was the hard work of a book like this that earned Ferguson the right to write books like that. So this book is not for the faint of heart. It is about 500 pages of small type, but more importantly, it is laden down with an immense weight of detailed facts, quotations, statistics, and above all, financial jargon--nineteenth-century financial jargon at that. Nevertheless, I highly recommend it, though it is best digested in small chunks over several months, I should think--the way I digested it.

It's interesting to note that even here, in this most "objective" of histories, we can see Ferguson adopting the role of amoral apologist for Mammon that he develops on such a grand scale in his later works. He is at pains to disprove the most sinister myths about the Rothschilds, and paint them (as much as possible) as philanthropic progressives, all the while telling a narrative of bribery, intrigue, price-fixing, double-dealing, and boundless greed--all of which, in the telling, looks fairly bland and run-of-the-mill, because it is simply how we have come to assume banking works, but all of which was deeply shocking to many of their contemporaries.

A full review/retelling of the story will appear in the January 2011 issue of Fermentations magazine.
Profile Image for Rob.
Rob
144 reviews37 followers
March 9, 2012
I read this book before Niall Ferguson became the favourite historian of Neoliberalism. This was a deadly boring book. His style was 'then he did that and then did the other etc etc'. It seemingly avoided all but a cursory examination of the family's Jewishness and what it meant to be a Jewish financier in Central Europe.
He is the most highly overrated living historian in the English speaking world.
39 reviews34 followers
August 3, 2016
If you, like me, groan loudly at shows and cultural items that glorify European nobility, from Pierre in War and Peace to all the Victorian movies/shows where every male actor looks like Eddie Redmayne, then the story of Rothschilds will be deeply satisfying. Niall Ferguson is a fantastic writer, but if I may riff for a second...

Nathaniel Rothschild is Kanye West. To the European nobles he did business with: He knows you don't like him, he sees you cringing at his Jewishness, but he also knows he runs the show, and he's going to make damn sure you know it. You get giddy reading the contempt he has for the average European aristocrat. It's delightfully similar to the joy we all take, and I'm sure Kanye takes, in making a fool out of Taylor Swift.

A decorated Prussian aristocrat comes to Nathaniel Rothschild. Nathaniel doesn't look up from his desk, "take a seat". The Prussian feels offended, "Do you know the eminence to which you are speaking?" Nathaniel, still not looking up, "Fine, take two seats."

Lines like "When a Jew lends to a noble, he owns that noble" sound conspiratorial now, but he is not wrong in seeing himself as the winner of the Napoleonic Wars. And you have to love that he would drunkenly horrify/entertain his guests later in life by putting on all the courtly uniforms of the courts that had knighted him. He trolls with the best.

Nathaniel and his brothers leave the Frankfurt ghetto as the French Revolution is getting underway. Nathaniel goes to London and proceeds to revolutionize financial markets and through daring, cunning, risk-taking, mathematical acumen, and pure viciousness dominate financial markets. The Rothschilds understand markets on a level which is distinctly modern. Concepts that we consider basic, like hedging and arbitrage, they invent to dominate the financial landscape of the Napoleonic Wars and the 19th century. It's a beautiful thing.

We love Hamilton, but perhaps we're not far enough away from the financial crisis to truly love Nathaniel Rothschild like we love Hamilton, but unlike the white Hamilton, Nathaniel is a continuous outcast Jew.

Heinrich Heine says it well: "I see in Rothschild one of the greatest revolutionaries who have founded modern democracy. Richelieu, Robespierre, and Rothschild are Europe's most fearful levellers...Rothschild destroyed the predominance of land, by raising the system of state bonds to supreme power."
Profile Image for Lex Alexander.
9 reviews4 followers
February 14, 2013
An amazing account of how one family defied social stigmas and broke through the proverbial glass ceiling to become the premiere banking family of the world. Ferguson does a masterful job of explaining in excruciating detail just how this small tight knit family came to conquer the world financially.
Profile Image for Mike.
511 reviews134 followers
July 22, 2013

The House of Rothschild is a hefty tome covering 200 years and several generations of this family. It is published in two volumes, each about 650 pages long in small (?6 point?) type. In hard cover, each one qualifies as a kitten crusher; together they could harm a small pony.

Since they were published as a set, I will be writing a common review.

The author is Niall Ferguson an unrepentant booster of monetary systems and capitalism. You may remember him from the PBS series, “The Ascent of Money: A Financial History of the World” or “Civilization: The West and the Rest” both of which are also books. (Also broadcast on Channel 4 in the UK.) He is a historian and currently is a Professor of History at Harvard University and holds other postings.

I’ve watched the aforementioned series and thought he was interesting enough to look up his earlier works.

Because he is a historian and took that approach while researching and writing this history, there are tons of notes on the source material. Each volume has at least 100 pages of “end notes” detailing these sources and there are copious quotations (both in brief phrases as well as longer passages) throughout the books. Those hungry for details and justification of the author’s observations and comments will not go away disappointed.

I don’t intend to provide extension observations about each of these volumes. To do each one justice would require much more time than I can devote to the task. The author himself wrote that the creation of this history was much longer than planned for: I am not surprised given the wealth of material.

For those who want a quick answer, these books are excellent. As much as it seemed a slog at points I was caught up in the details of the family, their businesses, and their worlds. As I neared the end of volume 2, I spoke about them to a colleague who is now inflamed with a desire to read these books. I can’t imagine anyone doing a better job with the material. One thing that he does a lot of is debunk contemporary and current myths about the family.

Four and one-half (4.5) Stars (rounded down to 4.0 for Goodreads).


The House of Rothschild: Money’s Prophets 1798-1848

Theirs is a rags-to-riches story. The Jewish Ghetto of Frankfurt was one of the most repressive in Western or Central Europe. Begun in the 12th century it had not changed much in the 18th: the laws controlling the lives and livelihoods of Jews were very strict and repressive. The man who is considered the “founder” of the famous branch of the family, Mayer Amschel Rothschild (an Ashkenazi Jew) began life as the son of a respectable man, but not one of wealth. Both of his parents died before his thirteen birthday and after and apprenticeship in Hanover, he returned to Frankfurt in1764.

There he began a business career that made him a respectable, if not prosperous man. As the years went on, he trained his five sons in business and began to establish them in the cities that would house the five branches of the family bank: Frankfurt (Amschel), London (Nathan), Naples (Carl), Vienna (Solomon), and Paris (James).

As the history of Europe unfolded around them, the family was able to conduct business between countries and even warring states (their primary business during this period was lending to governments or rulers). Changes in the balance of power and rulership began to liberalize the laws in many countries, although the German states remained behind other. England was, by far, the most liberal at this time.

In setting up the branches and overseeing its operation, the father stressed cooperation and unity over all else. He also planned for the future of the family and designed a scheme whereby the firm’s “capital” would remain with the family and not diluted as new generations arose. Only male descendents were eligible to be partners. Daughters, while given generous gifts and dowries were excluded, as were their husbands. Furthermore, in order to remain “concentrated”, family members began marrying within the family. For example the youngest son, James, married the daughter of his oldest brother. The 3rd generation had many cousin marriages. It was the family’s great good fortune that they did not carry any recessive genes. Such marriages continued into the 4th and 5th generations.

The family remained Jewish in faith and race. They may not have been the most devout, buy they did observe the rules and laws and did not “convert” like many others (e.g. Benjamin Disraeli’s family.) When one of Nathan’s daughters did convert to marry, she was shunned by almost everyone including her own mother. They were seen as exemplars of successful Jews who also cared about their “co-religionists”; speaking out for tolerance and donating to community needs and causes.

Having survived the turmoil of the French Revolution and Napoleon, the family became involved in new markets. Although the English bank, N. M. Rothschild & Sons was less active (but they founded an insurance company), James (de Rothschild & Frères) was convinced that railroads (and their government subsidies) were excellent investments. His vision caused the consolidation and merger of small lines (his and his competitors) into major transportation networks. They also became involved in metals (mining and refining) initially as security for loans to unstable economies.

Despite the turmoil of these years, the family’s wealth grew and when Nathan died in 1836, his fortune was easily twice (and possibly as much as five times) that of the next wealthiest man in England in the 1830s-50s; thus, making him the wealthiest man in the world by far. At his death, brother James became the leading figure in the family until shortly before his own death in 1868.


The House of Rothschild: The World’s Banker 1849-1999

In this second volume, the author gives us in detail the history of the family until about 1918. For the period thereafter, he provides more summary than before (some of which is recounted as oral conversations instead of archived source material). For the years after World War II, an epilogue covers the effects of their losses (due to seizure and nationalization during the war years) and the transformation of the remaining branches of the business into the current modern forms (including the revival of a Frankfurt office.)

In the years before the end of the 19th Century, the family business continues to grow in size and in diversity. They invest in additional transportation (railways) and take interests in mines in the New World, including Rino Tinto a leading mining and exploration company (then and now). They also handle much of the gold supply coming into England. They had built much of their business (in Vol. 1) on gold bullion, gold coinage, and other metals (e.g. silver). They had even taken over a refinery from the Bank of England to control purity and retain more of the profits.

Alth0ugh they had occasional setbacks (and better competitors), their relationships with policy makers and rulers, their courier system and news sources, and their use by others as a “back-channel” for diplomacy kept them well-informed. Their financial acumen and experience and ability to ship money between the houses made them very hard to beat. As their clients grew (and despite limited success in the USA) they truly were the World’s Banker for some 15-20 years.

Although an Austrian Emperor had elevated the brothers (hence the “von” or “de” designation), the English branch (Nathan) had not used the title. His son Lionel, although elected to the House of Commons in 1847, he was unable to be seated (there was a Christian oath required). After numerous re-elections, he was finally seated in 1858 as the first Jewish MP (Disraeli did not count having taken the standard oath). Although proposed, Queen Victoria refused to elevate him to a peerage. In 1885 she made Lionel’s son Nathan Mayer (more of a full-time politician than his father) the first Jewish member of the House of Lords,

In the second generation most of the family’s wealth was spent “carefully”. Property investments were selected partly for comfort but also for business (either client relations, banking, or as money-earning investments). In the third and later generations (and James, as he lived into these later years), they began to buy and create grander and grander estates. At this time they also acquired many of the works of art that were lost in the confiscations of WWII. Nathan’s son, Nathaniel, who went and stayed in France, bought the vineyard today known as Mouton Rothschild in 1853. (Before the 1855 Classification of Bordeaux). Fifteen years later, Uncle James bought the much larger Chateau Lafite (Lafite Rothschild).

By the 4th and 5th generations, the Partners were spending fewer hours in the “counting room” offices and competitors were cutting into their traditional business. Different kinds of bank which raised funds via shares sold to investors (rather than retained family capital) were able to address old and new markets. These banks (at least some of them) also took on deposits (which the Rothschilds typically did very little of). By the onset of the First World War, although still a viable and profitable business they were no longer at the core of European banking. At this same time, American powerhouse banks (like Morgan & Sons) were beginning to finance the European countries needs. Investments that proved exceptional included further South African gold mines and shares in the Diamond Cartel know as De Beers.

And while not everyone in the family may have been financially astute (or even keen on making it their career), they became (like many other late-Victorian/Edwardian era gentlemen botanists, naturalists, and other forms of scientists – with many writing learned papers on their subject.

In 1919, as war time restrictions were relaxed or lifted, (including that of gold export from the UK), N. M Rothschild became the intermediary between the bullion market and the Bank of England. Thus, on September 12, 1919, the first “fix” (the world market price for gold) was set at 11 AM by an auction. This has continued (except during WWII) to the present day, with prices set now at 11 AM and 3 PM. Who knew? (One reason for this arrangement was that the South African mines supplied about half the world’s supply at this time.)

There are as many interesting facts in this volume as in the first. Since the end of the 40s, the family has suffered some setbacks (such as nationalization of assets at low valuations) and internal strife. But as the end of the 20th Century approached, there was revitalization as both the banks’ structures and the Partners changed. Today, the Rothschilds are still a wealthy family of bankers, but they also have non-family partners and raise money like many other investment banks (or hedge funds). They still retain many of the traditional assets (like the vineyards), but have branched out in to all areas of finance and the economy. They even own Club Med.

Profile Image for Frank Stein.
1,017 reviews138 followers
June 11, 2014

This is a sprawling, fascinating, deep and finally difficult work of history, one that offers an original glance at the 19th century through the eyes of the family that financed much of it.

Ferguson shows convincingly how a family of Frankfurt antique dealers ascended the hierarchy of finance during the Napoleanic wars to become the richest individuals in history. Thanks to Mayer Amschel's five sons scattered across Europe, in London, Paris, Frankfurt, Naples and Vienna, and their family creed of "Concordia," the Rothshcilds were able to trade bills, bullion, and subsidies across the continent for both the French, and, more importantly, the allies, who needed funds for their scattered campaigns. In the post-bellum period, alliances with such nabobs as the British Treasury member John Charles Herries and infamous reactionary Austrian diplomat Prince Metternich, both of whom the Rothschild offered rich personal subventions, allowed them to dominate the world of government bonds, and thus dictate many government policies, especially those regarding war and peace.

While many contemporaries noted the irony of Jewish bankers being the main prop for the the "Holy Alliance" of Catholic monarchies in the East, and the Protestant ones in the West, Ferguson shows that in fact if the Rothschild's had a bias towards anything it was towards peace, an expensive and armed peace they preferred, but peace nonetheless. They often also used their clout to demand increased rights for Jews and sometimes even more parliamentry democracy, which they thought stabilized investments. Perhaps the best part of the book is showing the Rothschild's participation in the tangled webs of international diplomacy at the time, where ideologies were attached to regimes and countries like in few later periods. Liberals tended to support French and Belgian claims in any circumstances, while reactionaries supported Austria and Prussia, and domestic politics often involved playing off different nations as much as different policies. On the whole, the Rothschild worked across these ideological lines, but they turned more Whig and liberal as time went on.

Of course Ferguson demolishes many of the myths that have surrounded the Rothschilds since their ascent, much of which emerged from scurrilous anti-Semitic tracts (for instance, Nathan Rothschild didn't make his fortune buying bonds when he heard first the information about Waterloo, in fact, he had large contracts out to supply the army that peace, at least at this point, threatened to cancel). Still, Ferguson wonderfully explains how the family's Jewish identify helped them succeed and at the same time kept them out of the top realms of power. Still, their desire for a removal from the Christian world often lead to a stunning amount of inbreeding in the third and later generations of the family that one cannot help but be baffled at.

The main problem with the book is that it tries to cover too much, too fast, throwing reams of facts and anecdotes at the reader with little context and less development of character. Still, this research, bolstered by some of the first readings of the Rothschild "Judendeutch" correspondence, is an unparalleled look at some of the most important people in financial and world history.
Profile Image for jrendocrine.
595 reviews42 followers
November 30, 2018
Always wanted to know more about the Rothschilds, and it was a Kindle deal. But I give up (30%) -

This is a HIGHLY scholarly book - this is not for the causal reader who wants to learn a little about the Rothschilds. It is full on financial detail. The research is impressive, and I would think that people working on their pHDs in finance and economics would do well to read this. The part I read gave intense detail - how much was spent here, how much lent there, who what where in the lending, Nathan Rothschild's entry to England, the costs of Napolean's 100 days.

The oppressive spectre of antisemitism permeates every page. Perhaps eventually there is some opening up from the tight family finances, (but this HUGE tome is only volume I).

Life is too short, and this is not a book to be read for pleasure. Unless you are deeply involved in money, in which case, you could probably learn something.

So, I tip my hat to the author, close the book.
Profile Image for Marks54.
1,423 reviews1,177 followers
April 17, 2012
This is the first volume of Ferguson's two volume history of the Rothschild family. For some reason, I did not post this when I posted an entry for the second volume. I loved the book, for reasons I mentioned for volume 2. I have read several of his books and for me, this two volume set is the best and well worth the effort to read.
Profile Image for Susan.
Author  2 books2 followers
March 5, 2013
I was interested to learn about the beginnings and financial emergence of the Rothschilds--The Red Shield dynasty. I wasn't so interested in the day-to-day trifles; there was too much. I went on to other books to learn more about the workings of finance and the European banking dynasties. Niall Ferguson is an expert on economy, and I have learned a lot from him in the past.
Profile Image for Nick Harriss.
325 reviews3 followers
March 4, 2017
A fascinating review on the history of the Rothschild family. Rather slow in places, especially in the middle, but a worthwhile read. It still doesn't quite answer how the family managed to accumulate so much capital so quickly in the first 20 years of the 19th century, but authoritative and lacking in the conspiracy theories often surrounding the family.
Profile Image for Chris Davidge.
1 review2 followers
June 24, 2019
70% of the book was awesome, but it dragged on at the end and I was definitely excited to have it finished. Overall, I would recommend this book if you've ever wondered about the empire built by the Rothschild's and the barriers that they overcame.
Profile Image for Tom.
Tom
53 reviews
January 30, 2013
Who knew the Rothschild's had such an impact on the modern era? Niall Ferguson is perhaps the best historical author going.
Profile Image for Czarny Pies.
2,600 reviews1 follower
April 20, 2015
This is probably the best book of Niall Ferguson who much prefers giving us his opinion to doing real research. The House of Rothschild is a fascinating study of a brilliant family that made a great contribution to history and the arts.

Ferguson gives us a fascinating view of the Rothschilds as they rise to riches and come to hold power. The Rothschilds used their influence to discourage war and to promote peace. As a consequence the pro-war parties in several countries launched propaganda campaigns about the undue influence of Jewish bankers in European politics. Niall Ferguson argues quite rightly that we would all be better off if Jewish Bankers did in fact control our politics as war costs lives, destroys property and creates poverty. Jewish Bankers in contrast want people to live long, amass property and become rich.

Ferguson explains that the Rothschilds refused to finance wars for two reasons. The first was that the loser of the war inevitably defaulted on its loans. The second was that the winner was so weakened by the fight that it defaulted half the time. Thus in an era when governments depended on banks for financing, the opinions of the Rothschilds were of considerable importance. The Rothschilds were a key part of the system that prevented war in Europe for 100 years between Napoleon's defeat at Waterloo and WWI.

Unfortunately, in the twentieth century European governments discovered income tax which allowed them to finance total wars and to ignore the wishes of the bankers. As result, the world experienced the two most destructive wars ever. Ferguson's argument is irrestible to anyone who has taken a university level course in economics or finance. I heartily recommend this book.

Ferguson also praises the Rothschilds for the intelligent and generous support that they gave to many artists, writers and poets. I believe that this aspect of the Rothschilds is generally known and so I make no further comments.

It is very sad that Ferguson stopped his history of the Rothschilds at the end of Volume I. We could have used more of his insight on the role that banking and this wonderful family played in European history. We could easily done without his opinion books and had more of his research based studies.
Profile Image for David Glad.
191 reviews25 followers
January 16, 2013
It was an amazing account of how merchants could set themselves up as bankers and establish banking houses across multiple countries, overcome the barriers just about all other Jews faced at the time (including restrictions on land ownership), and how family members could be "kept in line."

The family in some sense seemed to resemble gods to their fellow Jewish people, the family also heaped scorn on those who converted to Christianity for personal (and apparently shortsighted) gain, while similarly also disowning family members who did not take up the family business and even more so if they converted to Christianity. Also of note in their early years, it sounded like they were willing to give decent shares of the business in their estates to family members who were NOT immediately sons or daughters just to keep the size enough for them to be interested.

There were other passages too, such as myths of how they would risk seizure of some of their own personal assets by invading armies to help secure a prince's, but also is interesting that they were accused of profiting handsomely from Napeleon's defeat at Waterloo when in reality they suffered losses because they had bet on Napoleon's return and ultimate defeat lasting a lot longer than it actually did. Though as banking goes, if you are unable to always be successful, make as well appear to be successful as hatred is still better than facing a bank run by depositors who think you are insolvent.
Profile Image for Jacob.
Author  10 books17 followers
September 22, 2012
These two books (volume 1 and 2) are way more detailed than i cared for. The gist of the Rothschild family is they made their fortune as one of the first lenders to european monarchies. When kings and princes wanted to finance their wars they turned to only a handful of private wealthy businessmen who had the funds to fill their need. The Rothschilds kept this in their family by rearing their children to learn the business and preventing those who married in from being involved. Eventually, by the 5th generation the kids were too spoiled to care about working to make money and the Rothschild family failed to innovated. Book 2 says it details the family history up to 1999, but this is misleading. It mostly goes through the 1920s and then the family must not have made headlines. Only the epilogue gives a high level overview of a short time after this into the 1990s.
Profile Image for JoséMaría BlancoWhite.
310 reviews44 followers
December 15, 2014
Review in Spanish for the benefit of Spaniards

Esta es la saga de la famosa familia judía de banqueros europeos Rothschild. Es uno de los libros más apasionantes que haya leído. Un tomo grueso pero cada página está llena de datos interesantísimos, de vidas apasionantes, historias que parecen de novela de aventuras. Aquí hay biografías personales, relaciones internacionales, historia de Europa -sobre todo la Era Napoleónica es muy interesante por lo que a la familia atañe, persecuciones y miserias, drama, misterio, extravagancias, pobreza y abundancia, etc, etc. La historia hecha disfrute: un privilegio para los amante de la lectura. Un libro que en manos de un mediocre sería un patente fracaso, en manos del genial Ferguson es una obra maestra. Nada más y nada menos que todo lo que hace a la vida interesante -y apasionante, está en sus páginas.
Profile Image for Zach Franz.
Author  2 books5 followers
June 28, 2019
My chief reason for reading this book was the mystery surrounding the Rothschild dynasty. How could so little be known about so powerful a family? Niall Ferguson's book (just this first volume) certainly brings to light much of the available information we have on the Rothschilds. In fact, perhaps too much. I could only get halfway through this volume before throwing in the towel. I love to read about history, but Ferguson's writing style lacks the lure of a true narrative. It feels more like he's simply relating facts, not telling a story. And while the primary sources he draws from are illuminating, he simply overuses them, often backing up the same point with multiple quotations that essentially say the same thing.
Profile Image for Amry Saja.
36 reviews
December 13, 2015
Got to admit the devil lies in the details
Ferguson unfold all he could about the Family of rothschild in thorough way
I need to read it few times to absorb the message and thrill present of the books

I am afraid I got an hello effect of Fergusson other book that I loved most like The war of the world, Civilization.

But seems like the angle of Fergusson writing on these book its not exactly as I expeceted to be. Perhaps one's must read few books of same subject to get right angle of that we aim for

Thinking of whether to continue the second volume or not ? hahahhaha
Profile Image for Andrew.
19 reviews2 followers
April 26, 2013
some of it went a bit over my head, i'm afraid. I'm not that well versed in how the global banking system works in present day, let alone during the years covered by this book so some of the economic terms and financial products discussed were a little confusing to me. It's something I'd like to come back to after giving myself a better education on global finance/economy.
Profile Image for Chris.
54 reviews1 follower
June 3, 2013
Ferguson before he started writing nonsense about US politics.
Profile Image for Henry Blood.
2 reviews
February 6, 2024
Niall Ferguson’s The House of Rothschild: Money’s Prophets, 1798-1848, the first of a two part history of the famous banking family is an impressive feat of scholarship. The book tracks the family’s rise to wealth, transition to banking, and their dominance of government financing in the first half of the 19th century. The book's strength is its description of the intersection of finance and politics in the first half of the nineteenth century. However, Ferguson’s promise to “dutifully” attend to academic historians historiographical debates are perfunctory at best, and his citations leave something to be desired. I suspect this has more to do with demands of the publisher than of the author. The function of social history, Jewish history, or gender history is generally as an interlude to the author's main interest, the business of selling and buying of government bonds. To be fair, that business also seems to have been the main interest of the partners of the Rothschild firm. In addition, any narrative unity in the text might have been lost by elevating, for example, the struggle for the emancipation of Jews in Europe during the nineteenth century. Yet, the book might have been more interesting if such an angle was pursued. The principal focus on the business of the Rothschild acts to dispel long standing and often anti-semitic myths about how the firm came to make its money, and to emphasize that much of the House of Rothschild’s success was due to its multinational character rather than any devious dealings.
Profile Image for Gilad Levin.
19 reviews
November 29, 2022
Not recommended. The story is not told in a chronological order, so it’s hard to follow and just feels like a bunch of random unrelated stories.

In addition, almost everything is repeated at least 3 times, quoting different sources for each story. When I’m reading a biography I want the writer to compare all the resources and give me one coherent version while footnoting all the rest.
609 reviews7 followers
April 26, 2020
Blinkist. Interesting. Looking for volume 2.
Profile Image for Arup Guha.
64 reviews6 followers
May 25, 2020
The House of Rothschild, Vol I is a difficult book. This is especially true if like everyone else you try to look for the answer to the question: how did they become so rich in the first place? Niall Ferguson spends a good deal of time trying to explain this, constrained though he is by the available historical resources. Few things are certain, Mayer Amschel was an extraordinary businessman and he imbued his sons with his restless spirit, not to a minor degree driven by the insecurity that comes from a life spent in the judengasse. Also certain are the benefits of possessing and managing the huge capital of the Elector of Hesse Kassel in the London market. However that’s it but that’s not enough. Even if you go through the bond transactions in detail and the few helpful bond price trackings provided by Ferguson, you would feel something is being left unexplained, since the growth in capital for all three houses is far more substantial during the early years, than can be explained by these transactions. They did a lot more and successfully but unfortunately there are no records.

Once you leave that question and the vagaries of bond finance aside, the book becomes lot more interesting for the lay reader with fascinating descriptions of their family affairs, their dealings with polity, kings, ministers and aristocrats and other banks. Also fascinating is their assimilation into national behaviour of typical of their class, such as engagement in horse racing and hunting and building of fabulous houses and gardens. There are few poignant stories like Amschel’s fascination for a beautiful tiny garden after a child and youth spent in the Jewish ghetto.

But why read the history of Rothschild in the first place? To my mind, to a person interested in financial history, its absolutely critical to read this book. Rothschild banking fraternity was the creator of the govt bond market; infact they played the role of the Central bank in more than one country before central banks and income taxes became the vogue. They were the first substantial multinational banking corporation which was one of the primary reasons for their survival through the endless stream of 19th century wars and revolutions. They were investment bankers of repute, frequently forming franchises to develop assets, industrial and mineral. One hazards a guess that they would have been even richer and more powerful if Nathan hadn’t prematurely died and thus established the USA branch of the house in time. Still its mindboggling to go through what they achieved starting from slums and through deep religious persecution.

There are lots of different flavours in the book from Rothschild personal correspondence, some of which might not agree with our points of view. You have to be a capitalist/investor yourself to understand their focus towards money, business and capital and dismissive irritability towards everything else, including any changes in the socio-political order. To a capitalist, capital is sacred, everything else is marked positive or negative for their influence on capital, these don’t have any individual significance.

If you look at the protagonists of this drama, they are definitely the first generation of Rothschild brothers and its difficult to pick favourites. Nathan established the firm footing in London market that allowed the whole house to benefit; James had a long, eventful and successful life as an intrepid financier and died the richest man on earth. Infact James’s life offers us the best insight into the Rothschild way of doing business. But humble Amschel and Salomon were not far behind. While being much more passive and cautious than Nathan and James, their capital accumulation for the Frankfurt house was substantial and impressive.

In conclusion, one question remains more unclear than the original ‘how did they make their fortune?’. How has the House of Rothschild remained as rich if not more for over 200 years when all other dynasties have returned to shirtsleeves? What do they pass on to the next generation? Maybe there is some insight in Vol II.
Profile Image for Paul Mamani.
138 reviews74 followers
December 28, 2019
Once upon a time, the Rothschilds were the wealthiest people on earth. In a thorough, diligent study, Ferguson (History/Oxford) completes his grand chronicle of the family that achieved history’s greatest economic hegemony (The House of Rothschild: Money’s Prophets, 1798-1848, 1998). Access to family records, hitherto unavailable, was facilitated by the English branch of the clan for this monumental authorized history. Ferguson makes their engrossing story an advanced seminar on the financial history of Europe. In their heyday, the Rothschilds practiced geopolitics on a grand scale. They arranged the tricky reparations following the Franco-Prussian conflict, were active in securing Suez for Victoria, and managed assets for the Vatican. Contrary to myth, they were generally pacifists. (War tended to disrupt markets as well as harm people)., “While others unified nations, the Rothschilds were quietly unifying Europe,” using railroads as a binding factor. They demolished social barriers erected against Jews, hobnobbing easily with aristocracy and royalty, dealing with the likes of Disraeli and Gladstone, Lloyd George and Cecil Rhodes, Napoleon III and Bismarck. They ultimately joined the nobility themselves, purchasing castles and art in prodigious quantities. By the turn of the last century and the advent of the fifth generation, however, there was a decline in the Rothschilds’ fortunes. They had neglected to establish a foothold in the New World. Power was dispersed among numerous, often effete, cousins. There were marriages outside the endogamous family, eventually even outside its religion. Some partners cashed out to go their own ways. Virulent anti-Semitism and two world wars left the family enterprises no more important than those of their numerous competitors. The text has a pronounced British accent, as the English house is given primacy. (Values are uniformly reported in pounds sterling). Not History for Dummies. Copious financial accounts are combined with political and social narrative to produce a formidable chronicle. It is an extraordinary tale of the unique commercial underwriters of European history, told with impressive scholarship.
Profile Image for Ocean G.
Author  6 books61 followers
March 10, 2019
An extremely thorough look at a very interesting family I knew very little about.

This book has a lot of detail, which I enjoyed quite a bit. In addition to detail about the family it goes into depth about finance and economics, and the politics (and wars, etc.) going on in Europe during the first half of the 19th century, obviously as how they pertain to the Rothschild family.

This family is a real rags to riches family. Starting from unthinkable conditions (and restrictions) in Frankfurt's Jugendgasse, to the pinnacle of finance in less than 2 generations. I look forward to the second part.
Having recently finished a biography of the Warburgs, I'm surprised at how little overlap there seems to be (I think they were mentioned just once in this book). However, since this one ends in 1848, it's still a bit early in the Warburg timeline. The second part might have more.

Some of the passages I highlighted:
"Three things would give an investor and edge over his rival: closeness to the center of political life, the source of news; the speed with which he could receive news of events in the states far and near, and the ability to manipulate the transmission of that news to other investors." (p. 5)
"It is better to deal with a government in difficulties than with one that has luck on its side." (p. 77)
"James, Salomon and Nathan all came under conflicting pressures from the governments in Paris, Vienna and London: but the final outcome was a united and carefully calculated policy of non-commitment. (p. 132)
"if you want capital without interest, buy land. If you want your interest without capital, buy shares" (p. 428)
"His refusal to let Alphonse serve in the National Guard, for example, was more an assertion of the primacy of family interests over all politics than an explicitly anti-republican gesture." (p. 455)

Profile Image for Tim.
Tim
473 reviews7 followers
January 16, 2014
This is fascinating but very dense. Not for every reader. If you love financial history though, it is great.

Ferguson charts the travails of the Rothschilds as they expand from humble merchants in Frankfurt to probably the richest and most influential bankers ever. He has an interesting analysis that supports his hypothesis that no one in this world has ever been richer compared to his fellow man than Nathan Rothschild.

By translating internal documentation from the original Judendeutsch he shows that while the family presented a united front to thew world, there were a lot of internal disagreement. Not only between the different houses, but also between the different generations. However, it was their geographical diversity that allowed the family to weather fiscal crises - a key strength compared to their local competitors.

I also appreciate his analysis that showed while the London house was the biggest in the early 1800's, the other houses grew more after that and were equals to London by the time of Nathan's death.

On to book #2 soon.
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