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

Those who already know Niall Ferguson do not need any praise for the books he writes: a few years ago I chanced to read his excellent "The Cash Nexus" and this led me to "The Pity of War" and finally to "The House of Rothschild". Ferguson is a scholar who loves challenges: not just challenging arguments, but also challenges in the sheer volume of sources and research, and finally challenges to the reader in presenting controversial theses (I think specially of those advanced brilliantly, and contentiously, in "The Pity of War" - see my review if interested). This last effort is mainly an attempt to unveil the Rothschild mythology, restoring an historically accurate perspective both of the family saga and of the banking and financial European history from 1798 to 1848. The book is a masterpiece for many reasons: not just story of a family (circumscribed to the male members), not just story of a great banking institution in the past two centuries, but also comprehensive financial history of the first half of XIX century... "a rich and nuanced portrait" as the book leaflet reads - that reveals and hides, but also creates an appealing and fascinated image of those turbulent years. So, it can appeal the history buff, and all those readers interested in financial history (and speculative bubbles) as well as those interested in biography and cultural history. The essay definitely has also - obviously maybe - a literary dimension: because in describing the five brothers Ferguson uses those same "colors" used by contemporaries, a literary dimension that cannot but appeal and enrich the more serious economic investigation: for Nathan the "meteoric" larger than life Napoleon-like image (passion for risk, high stakes on the table and the ruthlessness of a general), for James that richly colored literary portrait (full of mid-tones) we have been used by writers like Balzac, Zola and Stendhal (the mix of secretiveness and candid frankness, detachment and savoir vivre), for the others three brothers the age-old mythologies of Midas and the wandering Jew (specially in the portrait of the German and Austrian branch: they seem consciously prisoners of the Jewish stereotype in their inability to enjoy life and relax). Every reader interested in the story of the House of Rothschild want to know the why and how a middle class Jewish family confined in the Frankfurt ghetto was able in just one generation to become the richest family in the world. Ferguson's study is very good in the pars destruens, that is in taking down and unveiling the old mythologies (like the Waterloo myth, or the Hesse Kassel myth), less good in the pars construens that is substituting a coherent explanation. The surviving accounts are of course too tiny to cast light, and the accounting techniques used by the family in the early days too backward to be critically useful. So the impression is that of an unending race over speed limits, a sheer willingness to accept often uncalculated r

Niall Ferguson has done a commendable job of describing the developement of a captivating family saga. What I found most appealing about the book is its comprehensive nature -- it weaves the family story in the context of the political and economic developments,with which it is closely intertwined. What is even more fascinating is the level of financial details about the bank than Ferguson provides. Perhaps it is his access to the recently open archive in Moscow that allows the author to deisclose finanacial history that it fascinating and detailed.I would highly recommend this book to any serious student of history, as well as to people interested in banking and economics. Perhaps it may appear too detailed for the casual reader.

let me begin by saying that i am not in the habit of handing out five stars in my reviews, but this fine book certainly deserves it. i am not quite sure what to make of some of the criticisms leveled at this book in the reviews until now--too many facts, overly exhaustive, too much about continental finances or politics? can a definitive work of non-fiction have too many facts or be too exhaustive? what meaning do the rothschilds have if not in the context of continental politics. i loved every one of those three qualities about this book and, to boot, though it was appallingly well written as well. i found ferguson exhiliratingly (is this an adverb? it ought to be one) willing to assume that i could assimilate mass amounts of data, only sometimes arcane, and still want to follow a linear, only sometimes, social history--that's what definitive works are all about, i think. i applaud ferguson's not dumbing down history. and perhaps that is the difference between those who very much this book and those who didn't. i wanted to read history, and got it; others, perhaps, wanted to read a good yarn and didn't.