biography of rothschild family

• Search Search Please fill out this field.
• Mayer Amschel Rothschild

The Beginnings of a Banking Empire

• Expanding and Controlling
• Nathan Mayer Rothschild
• Growing Philanthropic Activities
• The Family in the 20th Century
• Moving Into the 21st Century

The Bottom Line

• Business Leaders
• Rich & Powerful

A History of the Rothschild Family

The Rothschild family is an influential banking dynasty from Frankfurt. In fact, it is one of the most famous financial houses and was once one of the world's richest families.

Established by Mayer Amschel Rothschild in the 18th century, the empire grew to prominence under his five sons: Nathan Mayer, James Mayer, Salomon Mayer, Carl Mayer, and Amschel Mayer. Mayer Amschel believed that keeping the business in the family ensured its success in the future. And he was right.

The Rothschilds made lucrative investments and developed a solid reputation in financial management throughout Europe. They became pioneers in the development of international finance, with branches in London, Paris, Vienna, and Naples, in addition to their native Frankfurt.

From a small business engaged in trading goods and foreign exchange , the Rothschild family grew its business activities to include:

• Merchant banking
• Private banking
• Asset management
• Mergers and acquisitions
• Venture capital
• Pensions and investments
• Sovereign debt
• Commodities

The Rothschild family has maintained its financial reach even today. It is also invested in major infrastructure projects such as bridges, tunnels, and railways. Perhaps one of its most notable projects is the Suez Canal. Other business interests include hotels, media, transportation, and wine.

Key Takeaways

• The Rothschild family grew in prominence in Europe beginning in the 18th century when Mayer Amschel Rothschild founded the family empire in Frankfurt.
• Mayer Rothschild sent sons to establish banking operations in London, Paris, Vienna, and Naples, in addition to keeping a son in Frankfurt.
• The family profited greatly during the Napoleonic Wars by helping the British government with its finances.
• In his will, Mayer Rothschild left strict instructions that titles and property could only be passed down through male heirs, which encouraged marriage among family members.

Investopedia / Sabrina Jiang

Mayer Amschel Rothschild: The Founder

Mayer Amschel Rothschild (1744–1812) grew up in Frankfurt's Judengasse , the narrow lane where the city's 3,000 Jewish residents were confined to live. Conditions were overcrowded and harsh. Jewish people could not leave at night, on Sundays, and on Christian holidays. They were barred from visiting public gardens or coffee shops, and could not walk in public in groups of more than two.

Mayer Rothschild learned business at a young age. His father, Amschel Moses Rothschild, dealt in silk cloth and exchanged currency. One of Mayer's first jobs was sorting coins acquired through Frankfurt's semi-annual trade fairs, which attracted buyers and sellers throughout the region.

His parents died of smallpox when Mayer was twelve. He lived with relatives, who sent him to Hannover to apprentice with Simon Wolf Oppenheimer, a prominent Jewish banking house. There, Mayer was exposed to foreign trade and finance, and learned about rare coins from places such as ancient Rome, Persia, and the Byzantine Empire. The collectors of these coins were princes and other men of wealth. The Jewish men who transacted with them were called "court Jews," or court factors, meaning they did business with nobility.

Mayer Rothschild returned to Frankfurt in 1763 at the age of 19 and joined his brothers in the trading business started by their father. Mayer became a dealer in rare coins and won the patronage of Crown Prince Wilhelm of Hesse, who had also bought coins from Mayer's father. This was an important business relationship for Mayer, as it grew to include other financial services and helped Mayer to develop ties with other nobles. Crown Prince Wilhelm was heir to immense wealth and later assumed the title Wilhelm IX, Landgrave of Hesse-Kessel.  

In 1769, Rothschild asked Wilhelm for the title of court factor, or crown agent. The honorary title signified that Mayer had performed services for royalty and allowed him to hang from his house a shield with the Hesse and Hanau coat of arms that effectively advertised this fact.  

In 1770, Mayer married Gutle Schanpper, the daughter of a money changer and court factor. She gave birth to the couple's ten children. They had five sons and five daughters.  

The Rothschild family history dates to the 1450s in Frankfurt.  

Expanding and Controlling the Rothschild Footprint

The Rothschild banking empire grew rapidly during the French Revolution. Mayer Rothschild facilitated payments from Britain for the hiring of Hessian mercenary soldiers.  

In the early 1800s, Rothschild sent his sons to live in Naples, Vienna, Paris, and London, in addition to keeping a son in Frankfurt. With Mayer Rothschild's children spread across Europe, the five linked branches became, in effect, the first bank to transcend borders. Lending to governments to finance war operations over several centuries provided the Rothschild family with ample opportunity to accumulate bonds and build additional wealth in a range of different industries.  

Before he died, Mayer Rothschild left strict instructions for his heirs on how they should handle family finances. He wanted to keep the fortune within the family and, as such, his will outlined a rigid patrilineal system of succession , whereby title and property could only pass through the male line and female descendants were excluded from any direct inheritance . This had the effect of encouraging marriages among family members.  

Between 1824 and 1877, there were 36 marriages of Mayer Rothschild's male descendants. Of these, 30 married within the family. Most married first or second cousins. During this time, only four Rothschild women and two men married partners to whom they were not related.  

Nathan Mayer Rothschild: International Financier

Of the four Rothschild sons who ventured out, the third son Nathan (1777–1836) achieved the greatest success. Nathan moved to Manchester, England, in 1798 to set up a textile business. He later moved to London to establish himself as a banker, setting up N M Rothschild in 1810.

N M Rothschild & Sons is still in operation today. In 2022, the bank reported €2.97 billion in revenue and €606 million in net income, with €101.6 billion in assets under management .

Like the other Rothschild banks, N M Rothschild & Sons furnished credit to the British government during times of crisis. During the Napoleonic Wars, the bank managed and financed subsidies the government sent to allies and lent funds to pay British troops, almost single-handedly financing the war effort.

In 1824, Nathan Rothschild and Moses Montefiore cofounded the Alliance Assurance Company, which today is part of the RSA Group. In 1835, Nathan secured the rights to mercury mines in Spain, gaining a virtual world monopoly on the chemical element, which is critical to refining gold and silver. This supply proved invaluable in 1852 when N M Rothschild & Sons began refining gold and silver for the Bank of England and the Royal Mint.

Growing Philanthropic Activities 

Nathan Rothschild contributed to many areas in the Jewish community. His family later expanded these charitable efforts to other populations in Paris and London. His earliest efforts went toward synagogues in London. This led to the formation of the United Synagogue, a group that helped streamline the causes of the smaller synagogues. Later, family members supported the development of Israel and helped construct housing and government buildings.

Nathan's youngest child, Louise, and her seven daughters took responsibility for many of the 30 Rothschild charitable foundations in Frankfurt. These foundations included public libraries, orphanages, hospitals, homes for the elderly, and special funds allocated for the purpose of education.

It is estimated that the Rothschild family has an estimated net worth of $1.2 trillion.

The Jews' Free School in London received extensive financial support. Educational efforts in Austria, France, and Israel were also made possible through the Rothschilds' generosity. In addition to monies put toward education, the family gave an estimated 60,000 pieces of artwork to public institutions. The Rothschild family expanded the creation of social housing in the cities of London and Paris, and the Rothschild Foundation was created to further these efforts.

The House of Rothschild in the 20th Century

Wars, politics, and family rivalries diminished the family fortune over the next 100 years. The Naples branch of the bank closed in 1863, and a lack of male heirs led to the closure of the Frankfurt branch in 1901. The Vienna branch was shuttered in 1938 following the Nazi invasion of Austria and the danger posed to Jews.

The Vichy government in France expropriated Rothschild's Bordeaux properties during the war, and the Nazis confiscated millions of dollars worth of art and other precious objects from the Austrian branch of the family (a portion of these were returned by the Austrian government in 1998). Over the years, palatial Rothschild estates were donated to the British and French governments and other organizations and universities.

By the 1970s, three Rothschild banks remained: the London and Paris branches and a Swiss bank founded by Edmond Adolphe de Rothschild (1926–1997). In 1982, President Francois Mitterrand's socialist government dealt the Paris bank a fatal blow, nationalizing it and renaming it Compagnie Européenne de Banque.

Despite his independence, Edmond came to the aid of his cousin, Baron David René James de Rothschild (1942), who stayed in Paris and in 1987 created Rothschild & Cie Banque. By 2003, the British and French banks were united with David as chair.

In 2008, all of the holdings were reorganized under a single company, a shareholder of Paris Orléans based in France, unifying the family businesses roughly two centuries after the five sons of Mayer Rothschild spread out across Europe.

Moving Into the 21st Century

The family wealth has been divided among descendants and heirs over the years. Today, Rothschild's holdings span a number of industries, including financial services, real estate, mining, energy, and charitable work. The family also owns more than a dozen wineries throughout the world.

Traditionally, the Rothschild fortune is invested in  closely held corporations . Today, Rothschild corporations have continued to see success. Most family members are employed by these corporations directly or are invested in operations that generate family wealth.

The remarkable success of the family has largely been due to a strong interest in cooperation, being entrepreneurs, and the practice of smart business principles.

The estate of Nathan Rothschild was intimately tied to the other fortunes of the family and became part of the collective wealth each Rothschild passed to the next generation. Rothschild descendants continue to finance global business operations and contribute to scholarly, humanitarian, cultural, and business endeavors.

The family motto is Concordia, Integritas, Industria , which means harmony, integrity, and industry.

What Companies Are Owned by Rothschilds?

The Rothschild Group has ownership stakes in many companies, some of which include Air Products and Chemicals, Duke Energy, Glencore, Alliant Energy, Mitsubishi, FirstEnergy, and Fortis.

Who Is the Head of the Rothschild Family?

The head of the Rothschild family is Jacob Rothschild, 4th Baron Rothschild.

Who Is the Richest Living Rothschild?

The richest living Rothschild is David Mayer De Rothschild. He is an explorer and environmentalist with an estimated net worth of $10 billion.

The Rothschild family is one of the oldest, wealthiest, and most storied families in history. With roots in banking, the family has continued to grow its wealth in a variety of businesses over the centuries, continuing to wield significant power and money.

The Rothschild Archive. " Origins of the Business ."

The Rothschild Archive. " Business Activities ."

The Rothschild Archive. " Nathan Mayer Rothschild and 'Waterloo' ."

Adam Kuper, via ResearchGate. " The House of Rothschild ," Pages 276-279. Social Anthropology, 2001.

The Rothschild Archive. " House of the Green Shield, The Judengasse, Frankfurt, Germany ."

Jeffrey E. Garten. " From Silk to Silicon: The Story of Globalization Through Ten Extraordinary Lives ." Amberley Publishing, 2016.

The Rothschild Archive. " Mayer Amschel Rothschild ."

The Rothschild Archive. " Rothschild Timeline ."

The Rothschild Archive. " Brief History of the London House, N M Rothschild & Sons ."

N M Rothschild & Sons. " Annual Report 2022 ," Pages 10 and 11.

The Rothschild Archive. " The Alliance Assurance Company. "

The Rothschild Archive. " Rothschild Family Philanthropy ."

CA Knowledge. " Rothschild Family Net Worth 2023: Assets Secret Wealth ."

The Rothschild Archive. " Edmond de Rothschild Group ."

The Rothschild Archive. " David René James de Rothschild ."

Global Coal Exit List. " Rothschild Group ."

The Rothschild Archive. " The Rothschild Name and Arms ."

The Richest. " The Richest Living Members of Rothschild Family, Ranked by Net Worth ."

• Terms of Service
• Editorial Policy
• Privacy Policy
• Your Privacy Choices

• International edition
• Australia edition
• Europe edition

Great dynasties of the world: The Rothschilds

I n his book The Merchant Banker (1966) the late Joseph Wechsberg – musician, polymath, gourmand, and correspondent for the New Yorker – devoted his final chapter to the Rothschilds. The Merchant Banker is an interesting book, full of insights, but in the end the Rothschilds defeat even Wechsberg. "The Rothschild legend," he writes, "has long ago outrun the facts." Some dynasties persist. The Rothschilds transcend.

The name Rothschild means, roughly, in German, "red shield" – historians speculate that a red shield may have hung at the gate of the family house in Frankfurt. The first notable Rothschild was Mayer Amschel, born in Frankfurt in 1743/44. He was a dealer in rare coins, medals, antiques and curiosities. With his wife, Gutle, he had many children, 10 of whom survived, including five sons: Nathan, James, Salomon, Amschel, and Carl. As Mayer's family grew, so did his business. He started extending credit to his customers, then dabbling in foreign currency trading and in government loans. By the beginning of the 19th century he was very wealthy. And he was no longer an antiques dealer. He was a banker.

Mayer and Gutle's children fanned out across Europe: Nathan to London; James to Paris; Salomon to Vienna; Carl to Naples; Amschel, the eldest, stayed in Frankfurt. The boys traded. They built railways. They invested in gold and precious metals. And they specialised in lending money to governments. "There is but one power in Europe and that is Rothschild," wrote a French journalist in 1841.

There have been many exceptional Rothschilds – too many to mention. Even Niall Ferguson's massive biography of the family, The House of Rothschild , only begins to tell the story. Apart from the bankers, there was Charlotte de Rothschild (1819-1884) who founded the Home for Aged Incurables and the Jews' Emigration Society; Nathaniel de Rothschild (1812-1870), who bought the land near Bordeaux that became the Château Mouton Rothschild vineyards; and Arthur de Rothschild (1851-1903), a philatelist.

Among the English branch, perhaps the most intriguing are Lionel Walter Rothschild (1868-1937), a zoologist who set up a vast private natural history museum at his home at Tring Park , Hertfordshire, and his younger brother Charles (1877-1923), a banker and conservationist who killed himself after contracting encephalitis.

Charles's children included Miriam Rothschild (1908-2005) , a pioneering naturalist, entomologist and vegetarian, who worked as a code-breaker at Bletchley, and who was the first woman to be a trustee of the British Museum. She also set up the Schizophrenia Research Fund .

Miriam's brother Victor (1910-1990) played county cricket for Northamptonshire, was a fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge, a zoologist, a book collector, director of research at Shell, chairman of NM Rothschild & Sons, and a friend of the Cambridge spies Guy Burgess and Anthony Blunt.

During the second world war, Victor was responsible for testing the gifts sent to Churchill for poisons and explosives. His published scientific work include Fertilization (1956) and A Classification of Living Animals (1961).

Miriam's sister Pannonica (1913-1988), named after a moth discovered by her father, was a keen aviator who became known as the Jazz Baroness after she moved to New York in the 1950s and befriended jazz musicians including Art Blakey, Sonny Rollins, Bud Powell and Charlie Parker. (Parker died in her apartment.) Horace Silver's Nica's Dream is dedicated to Pannonica. This summer, Nat Rothschild, scion of the dynasty, held a lavish 40th birthday party in Montenegro. Guests included Peter Mandelson and Novak Djokovic.

• Great dynasties of the world

Comments (…)

Most viewed.

The Rothschild family is worth an estimated $1 billion. Meet the remaining heirs of the legendary dynasty.

• The Rothschild family amassed their fortune from their powerful European banking dynasty.
• Lord Jacob Rothschild and his wife, Serena, had four children: Hannah, Beth, Emily, and Nat.
• The family's philanthropy has focused on Jewish charities and arts and culture.

Having defined several eras of financial history and established banks across Europe, the Rothschild family 's impact remains wide-reaching.

Following Lord Jacob Rothschild's death at the age of 87, which his foundation announced Monday, the focus now turns to the heirs to the family fortune, worth an estimated $1 billion, according to a 2023 report by the Sunday Times Rich List .

Here are some of the prominent Rothschild family members now at the helm of one of the world's most powerful financial dynasties.

Hannah Rothschild

Hannah Rothschild, 61, is Jacob Rothschild and Serena Dunn Rothschild's oldest child. The couple were married from 1961 until Serena's death in 2019.

Their daughter Hannah is the author of several books including the novels "House of Trelawney," "The Probability of Love," and a biography of her aunt, "The Baroness: The Search for Nica the Rebellious Rothschild."

She has also directed and produced documentaries such as "The Jazz Baroness" about her great aunt and "Hi Society: The Wonderful World of Nicky Haslam," according to her IMDb page.

She served as the chair of the board of trustees of the National Gallery, London, from 2015 to 2019, and was the first woman to hold the position, Artforum reported. She has chaired the board of Yad Hanadiv, the Rothschild family's philanthropic foundation in Israel, since 2018, according to the organization's official website .

Nathaniel "Nat" Rothschild

The youngest child and only son of Jacob Rothschild and Serena Mary Dunn, Nat, 52, was co-chairman of the hedge fund Atticus Capital from 1996 until it ceased activity in 2009. He now lives in Switzerland a majority of the time and works as executive chairman of the board of directors at the electrical manufacturing company Volex .

He previously ran JNR Limited, an advisory business focused on emerging markets and natural resources transactions.

Forbes listed his net worth at $1 billion in 2012, but he is not included in Forbes' current billionaires ranking. Upon the death of his father, he became the 5th Baron Rothschild.

Hannah and Nat have two other siblings, Beth and Emily, who have not taken major roles in public life or Rothschild family institutions.

Lynn Forester de Rothschild

Lynn Forester de Rothschild, 69, was married to Sir Evelyn de Rothschild, Jacob Rothchild's cousin, from 2000 until his death in 2022.

She is the CEO of E.L. Rothschild, a holding company with investments in a range of media properties including the Economist Group.

She was a major fundraiser for Hillary Clinton in 2008 and gained notoriety for subsequently endorsing John McCain, Politico reported. She splits her time between New York and London.

David Mayer de Rothschild

David, 45, is the youngest child of Jacob Rothschild's cousin, Sir Evelyn de Rothschild, and his second wife, Victoria Lou Schott.

An environmental activist and adventurer, he authored "The Live Earth Global Warming Survival Handbook: 77 Essential Skills to Stop Climate Change — Or Live Through It" and sailed a boat, the Plastiki, made entirely of recycled plastic bottles and other reclaimed materials, from San Francisco to Sydney in 2009.

He launched The Lost Explorer, a sustainable clothing and lifestyle brand, in 2016, GQ reported. The Lost Explorer now mainly sells mezcal.

Nadine de Rothschild

The Baronne Nadine de Rothschild, 91, is the widow of Edmond Adolphe de Rothschild, who was chairman and owner of the Edmond de Rothschild Group . When he died in 1997, he was thought to be the richest member of the family, The Washington Post reported at the time.

Nadine de Rothschild is a French author and actress who used the stage name Nadine Tallier, according to IMDb .

Ariane de Rothschild

Ariane, 58, was married to Edmond and Nadine Rothchild's son, Benjamin, from 1999 until his death in 2021 of a heart attack at age 57, Forbes reported.

Having worked for various Rothschild financial institutions since the early 2000s, she became CEO of Edmond de Rothschild Group in 2023, making her the first woman to run a Rothschild bank, the Financial Times reported.

Edouard Etienne Alphonse de Rothschild

A member of the French wing of the family, Edouard, 66, is the son of Guy de Rothschild and French socialite Marie-Hélène Naila Stephanie Josina de Rothschild.

In 2004, he turned down a position at the French Rothschild & Cie bank to focus on pursuits outside of finance, The New York Times reported.

Edouard owns a share of the Lafite vineyard and is an avid horse enthusiast, having served as the president of France Galop from 2003 to 2011 and from 2015 onwards, BloodHorse reported. In 2005, he invested approximately $28 million in the left-wing Parisian newspaper Libération, and he became president of its board in 2010.

That same year, he moved to Israel, RFI reported. Members of the Rothschild family contributed to the founding of the state of Israel, buying land from Ottoman authorities and financing the construction of Israel's Knesset and Supreme Court buildings, according to Jewish Virtual Library .

David René James de Rothschild

Edouard's brother, David René James de Rothschild, served as chairman of Rothschild & Co Gestion from 2012 until 2018, when he moved on to hold the position of chairman of the supervisory board of Rothschild & Co. He became honorary chairman in 2023, according to Rothschild & Co's official website .

The 81-year-old also serves as president of the French Holocaust memorial organization, Fondation pour la Mémoire de la Shoah .

Emma Georgina Rothschild

Emma Georgina Rothschild, 75, is the daughter of Victor Rothschild, 3rd Baron Rothschild — Jacob Rothschild's father — and his second wife, Teresa Georgina Rothschild.

She is an economic historian at Harvard and an honorary professor at Cambridge and Centre d'Histoire de Sciences Po in Paris, according to her biography on Harvard's official website . She also serves as a trustee to the Rothschild Archive, a London-based center for research into the family. She is married to the Nobel-prize winning economist Amartya Sen.

James Rothschild

James Rothschild, 38, is the grandson of Victor Rothschild, 3rd Baron Rothschild.

He is the founder and managing partner of the growth technology firm Tru Arrow Partners and the co-founder of the investment firm West Arrow, according to his bio on Rockefeller Capital Management's official website . He is also a trustee of Yad Hanadiv.

He married hotel heiress Nicky Hilton at Kensington Palace in 2015, People magazine reported.

• Main content

Supported by

Rothschild Family

A Dutch Museum Tells the ‘Hidden Story’ of Looted Art Works

The Bonnefanten museum’s “Art Adrift” exhibition represents the museum’s effort to grapple with its own complex connection to looted art from World War II.

By Nina Siegal

Jacob Rothschild, Banker Who Broke From His Fabled Family, Dies at 87

The fourth Baron Rothschild, he left the family banking dynasty to start his own company, becoming a powerful financier, patron of the arts and philanthropist.

By Alan Cowell

It’s My Privilege: Glorious Memoirs by the Very Rich

A look back at a time when the super-wealthy felt they had nothing to lose by letting readers inside their gilded corridors.

By Molly Young

Rothschilds Aim for Full Control of Bank That Bears Their Name

The family’s investment vehicle said it would offer to buy out other shareholders in Rothschild & Co., the flagship in the global banking dynasty.

By Michael J. de la Merced

Evelyn de Rothschild, Scion of Banking Dynasty, Dies at 91

Initially showing little promise, he eventually joined the family firm and rose to chairman, wielding vast influence in Britain’s financial and political affairs.

By Robert D. McFadden

The Rothschild Women Led Lives as Full as the Men’s

A new biography by Natalie Livingstone focuses on several generations of the banking family’s wives and daughters, documenting their passions for politics, science and music, all abetted by wealth and social connections.

By Miranda Seymour

In Israel, It’s the Only Golf Game in Town, and the Country

Homes with views of Caesarea’s golf course are among the most rapidly appreciating in the nation, even for buyers who rarely pick up a club.

By Debra Kamin

A French Wine From China? This $300 Bottle Is the Real Thing

A Rothschild estate in Shandong Province has released its first vintage. It was 10 years in the making.

Mel Gibson’s ‘Rothchild’ Movie? There Are More Bizarre Films for Sale at Cannes

The Cannes Film Festival is also a marketplace where merchants flaunt movies that haven’t been made yet, in the hope of drawing media attention and buyers.

By Farah Nayeri

A 150-Year-Old Wine and Its Descendants Reveal Their Secrets

No wine is meant to last for a century. If it does, it’s by accident. But at a dinner commemorating the 150th anniversary of the Rothschild acquisition of Lafite, 16 vintages were sampled going back to 1868.

By Eric Asimov

Advertisement

Amazon Prime includes:

Fast, FREE Delivery is available to Prime members. To join, select "Try Amazon Prime and start saving today with Fast, FREE Delivery" below the Add to Cart button.

• Cardmembers earn 5% Back at Amazon.com with a Prime Credit Card.
• Unlimited Free Two-Day Delivery
• Streaming of thousands of movies and TV shows with limited ads on Prime Video.
• A Kindle book to borrow for free each month - with no due dates
• Listen to over 2 million songs and hundreds of playlists
• Unlimited photo storage with anywhere access

Important:  Your credit card will NOT be charged when you start your free trial or if you cancel during the trial period. If you're happy with Amazon Prime, do nothing. At the end of the free trial, your membership will automatically upgrade to a monthly membership.

Buy new: $18.31 $18.31 FREE delivery: Monday, April 22 on orders over $35.00 shipped by Amazon. Ships from: Amazon.com Sold by: Amazon.com

Return this item for free.

Free returns are available for the shipping address you chose. You can return the item for any reason in new and unused condition: no shipping charges

• Go to your orders and start the return
• Select the return method

Buy used: $16.41

Fulfillment by Amazon (FBA) is a service we offer sellers that lets them store their products in Amazon's fulfillment centers, and we directly pack, ship, and provide customer service for these products. Something we hope you'll especially enjoy: FBA items qualify for FREE Shipping and Amazon Prime.

If you're a seller, Fulfillment by Amazon can help you grow your business. Learn more about the program.

Other Sellers on Amazon

Download the free Kindle app and start reading Kindle books instantly on your smartphone, tablet, or computer - no Kindle device required .

Read instantly on your browser with Kindle for Web.

Using your mobile phone camera - scan the code below and download the Kindle app.

Image Unavailable

• To view this video download Flash Player

Follow the author

The House of Rothschild Paperback – November 1, 1999

Purchase options and add-ons.

• Book 1 of 2 The House of Rothschild
• Print length 544 pages
• Language English
• Publisher Penguin Books
• Publication date November 1, 1999
• Dimensions 6.02 x 1.15 x 9.2 inches
• ISBN-10 9780140240849
• ISBN-13 978-0140240849
• See all details

Frequently bought together

Similar items that may deliver to you quickly

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com review.

Ferguson's sprawling history covers much ground and involves a cast of hundreds of players. At the outset he notes that his book was commissioned by the modern descendants of the House of Rothschild; even so, he approaches his task with careful balance and a critical eye, pointing out the Rothschilds' failings as well as successes. The result is a fine, solid contribution to economic history, one that, unlike so many books in the field, is eminently readable. --Gregory McNamee

About the Author

Excerpt. © reprinted by permission. all rights reserved..

CHARLOTTE DE ROTHSCHILD, MAY 1849

Though they had managed to weather its storms financially, 1848 might still have proved a fatal turning point for the Rothschilds—but for reasons unrelated to economics and politics. For in the years immediately after the revolution the very structure of the family and the firm was called into question. It is easy to forget as one reads their letters that the four remaining sons of Mayer Amschel were by now old men. Amschel was seventy-seven in 1850, Salomon seventy-six and Carl an ailing sixty-two. Only James was still indefatigable at fifty-six.

    Longevity, on the other hand, was a family trait: though their father had died aged sixty-eight, their mother, born in 1753, lasted long enough to see the crown of a united Germany offered to a Prussian king by a national assembly gathered in her own home town. Indeed, Gutle Rothschild had become something of a by-word by the 1840s, as The Times reported:

    Cartoons were published on the subject: one, entitled Grandmother's 99th Birthday , depicted James, with Gutle in the background, telling a group of well-wishers: "When she reaches par, gentlemen, I will donate to the state a little capital of 100,000 gulden" (see illustration 1.i). A different version of the same joke has a doctor assuring her she will "live to be a hundred." "What are you talking about?" snaps Gutle. "If God can get me for 81, He won't take me at a hundred!"

    Her dogged refusal to quit the old house "zum grünen Schild" in the former Judengasse appealed to contemporaries, suggesting as it did that the Rothschilds' phenomenal economic success was rooted in a kind of Jewish asceticism. Ludwig Börne had sung her praises on this score as early as 1827: "Look, there she lives, in that little house ... and has no wish, despite the world-wide sovereignty exercised by her royal sons, to leave her hereditary little castle in the Jewish quarter." When he visited Frankfurt sixteen years later, Charles Greville was amazed to behold "the old mother of the Rothschilds" emerging from her "same dark and decayed mansion ... not a bit better than any of the others" in the "Jews' street":

    But on May 7, 1849, in her ninety-sixth year and with her surviving sons at her bedside, Gutle finally died.

    It was one of a spate of deaths in the family. The year before, Amschel's wife Eva had died. In 1850, so did Nathan's widow Hannah as well as—to the great distress of the Paris Rothschilds—her youngest grandson, Nat's second son Mayer Albert. Carl's wife Adelheid died in 1853, followed a year later by Salomon's wife, Caroline. The effect of these events on the older members of the second generation may easily be imagined. Mayer Carl noticed how "deeply affected" Amschel had been by the death of his mother. "It is a great loss to [him] ... & I cannot tell you how many wretched hours we have spent lately ... Uncle A. is confined to his room but feels rather better after the first shock which was really fearful." He was only slightly "calmer" when the family gathered in Frankfurt for Gutle's funeral. Indeed, he and his brother Salomon cut rather forlorn figures in their twilight years, spending less and less time in the counting house and more and more time in Amschel's garden.

    To the new Prussian delegate to the Diet of the restored German Confederation—a mercurial and ultra-conservative Junker named Otto von Bismarck—Amschel seemed a pathetic old man. "[I]n monetary terms," Rothschild was of course the "most distinguished" man in Frankfurt society, Bismarck reported to his wife shortly after arriving in the town. But "take their money and salaries away from the lot of them, and you would see how undistinguished" he and the other citizens of Frankfurt really were. The newcomer was characteristically rebarbative when Amschel invited him to dinner ten days in advance (to be sure of an acceptance), replying that he would come "if he was still alive." This answer "alarmed him so much that he repeated it to everybody: `What, why shouldn't he live, why should he die, the man is young and strong!'" With his limited private means and meagre stipend, the Junker diplomat was bound to be impressed as much as he was repelled by the "hundredweight of silverware, golden forks and spoons, fresh peaches and grapes, and excellent wines" which were laid before him on Amschel's dinner table. But he could not conceal his disdain when the old man proudly showed off his beloved garden after their meal:

    As Bismarck shrewdly divined, it was this last question—who should inherit their wealth—which most preoccupied the old Rothschilds, who accordingly spent long hours tinkering with their wills. Years before—in 1814—Amschel had joked that the difference between a rich German Jew and a rich Polish Jew was that the latter would "die just when he was losing, whilst the rich German Jew only dies when he has a great deal of money." Forty years later, Amschel was living up to his own stereotype, with a share in the family firm worth nearly £2 million. But who should inherit this fortune? Denied the son he had so long prayed for, Amschel brooded on the merits of his twelve nephews, particularly those (principally Carl's sons Mayer Carl and Wilhelm Carl) who had settled in Frankfurt. In the end, his share of the business was divided in such a way that James got a quarter, Anselm a quarter, Nathan's four sons a quarter between them and Carl's three sons the last quarter.

    Salomon had an heir, of course, and a daughter well provided-for in Paris; but—perhaps because of the harsh words they had exchanged in Vienna at the height of the revolutionary crisis—he sought to avoid making Anselm his sole heir. Instead, he devised complicated provisions designed to transmit most of his personal wealth directly to his grandchildren. At first he seems to have considered leaving almost all of it (£1.75 million) to his daughter Betty's children (£425,000 apiece for the boys and just £50,000 for Charlotte, whom he had already given £50,000 on the occasion of her marriage to Nat), leaving only his three houses to Anselm and his sons, and just £8,000 for their married sister Hannah Mathilde. Even his Paris hôtel, he told Anselm, would go to "you and your sons ... I repeat it is for you and your sons . I have thought about it and put in a clause [to ensure it remains their property for] over a hundred years. No sons-in-law or daughters can have any claim on it." This was partly a self-conscious strategy to exert the maximum posthumous influence, rather as Mayer Amschel had done in 1812; indeed, the exclusion of the female line was an idea he had inherited from his father. But, unlike his father, Salomon decided that only one of his grandsons would ultimately inherit his share of the family business from Anselm—a new development in a family which had hitherto treated all male heirs more or less equally. In a final codicil to his will dated 1853, he scrapped the clause which left the choice of successor to Anselm, specifying (unsuccessfully, as it turned out) his eldest grandson Nathaniel. Ultimately, all Salomon's schemes came to naught; in practice, it was Anselm who inherited his fortune and who decided which of his sons should succeed him. Bismarck was right too that the younger Rothschilds ridiculed their old uncles. Visits to the invariably "sad and morose" Uncle Carl were especially dreaded. If there was great grief in 1855 when Salomon, Carl and Amschel one after another expired in the space of just nine months, no record of it has come to light.

    This wave of mortality came in the wake of a dramatic upheaval in the Rothschilds' financial affairs. As we have seen, the huge sums which had to be written off in the wake of the Vienna house's effective collapse were not easily forgotten, especially by the London partners, whose worst fears about their uncles' reckless business methods appeared to have been confirmed. Unfortunately, the structure of the firm meant that losses of the sort sustained by Salomon had to be borne collectively; his personal share of the firm's total capital was not proportionately reduced. This explains why, in the period immediately after the revolution, unprecedented centrifugal forces threatened to break the links which Mayer Amschel had forged nearly forty years before to bind his sons and grandsons together. In particular, the London partners sought to "liberate" themselves from the commitments to the four continental houses which had cost them so dear in the wake of the revolution. As Nat put it in July 1848, he and his brothers wished to "come to some sort of an arrangement so that each house may be in an independent position." Small wonder the prospect of a "commercial and financial congress" had filled Charlotte with such dread when it was first proposed in August 1848: "Uncle A. is weakened and depressed by the loss of his wife, Uncle Salomon by the loss of his money, Uncle James by the uncertain situation in France, my father [Carl] is nervous, my husband, though splendid, is stubborn when he is in the right."

    When James set off to see his brothers and nephews in Frankfurt in January 1849, Betty fully expected the congress to "alter the bases of our Houses, and following the London house, [to] grant mutual freedom from a solidarity which is incompatible with the movements in politics ..." Characteristic of the strained relations between Paris and London was the row later that year when James heard that Mayer had "ordered" one of the Davidson brothers " not to send any gold to France"—an assertion of English paramountcy he found intolerable. In Paris itself, there was constant friction between Nat and James. The former had always been a good deal more cautious than his uncle, but the revolution, as we have seen, all but broke his nerve as a businessman. "I advise you to be doubly cautious in business generally," he exhorted his brothers in a typical letter at the height of the crisis:

    Betty saw the force of this. As she commented, "Our good Uncle [Amschel] can't tolerate a lessening of our fortune, and in his desire to restore it along previous lines, he wouldn't think twice about throwing us back into the disturbance of hazardous affairs." But James was increasingly impatient with Nat's pusillanimity. Charlotte suspected that James would positively welcome his nephew's withdrawing from the business as it would allow him to increase the involvement of his elder sons Alphonse and Gustave (who first begin to figure in the correspondence in 1846). As Betty put it, the "old ties of fraternal union" for a time seemed "pretty close to falling apart."

    Nor were these the only sources of familial disunity. Even before the 1848 revolution, there had been complaints from Frankfurt about the attitude of the London house. It was, complained Anselm, "very unpleasant to be the most humble servant, to execute your order without even knowing by the Spanish correspondence what is going forward. Very true it is that we do not merit any consideration, & that since a long time ago [ sic ] we are ranged in a secondary line in the Community of the different houses." As this implies, Anselm was assuming that he, as the eldest of the next generation, would be Amschel's successor in Frankfurt. Yet the collapse of the Vienna house changed everything, as it put pressure on him to take over permanently his father's place in Austria. In the same way, Carl wished his eldest son Mayer Carl to succeed him in Italy. However, the childless Amschel was even more determined that Mayer Carl should take over from him in Frankfurt, leaving his younger and less able brother Adolph to go to Naples. As James observed, such arguments were not only between the elderly brothers but also between their sons and nephews, who were all evidently vying for control of the Frankfurt house, since it continued to be dominant over its Vienna and Naples branches: "Anselm is at odds with Mayer Carl. Mayer Carl is at odds with Adolph." Although notably partisan in her eldest brother's favour, Charlotte's diary details some of the ill-feeling this rivalry generated:

     Finally, it is important to bear in mind the anger felt in London and Paris towards the Vienna house after the dèbâcle of 1848. At times, James talked as if even he would not be sorry to sever his links with Vienna. "I have no interest in Vienna," he wrote to New Court in December 1849. "While others speculate against the government there, our people in Vienna are not so smart and are unfortunately poor businessmen. They always think they are doing business for the good of the state."

     Yet in the end the partnership was renewed in 1852 with relatively limited alterations to the 1844 system and continued to function with as much success as ever in the following two decades. Why was this? The best explanation for the survival of the Rothschild houses as a multinational partnership lies in the vital role played by James in bridging the generation gap and binding the increasingly divergent branches of the family together again. As Charlotte remarked when she saw her uncle in Frankfurt in 1849, James had emerged from the crisis of 1848 with his lust for life and business undiminished:

    And this was James's routine when he was away from Paris. The James whom the young stockbroker Feydeau encountered in the rue Laffitte was as much a force of nature as he had been in Heine's heyday; if anything, age made James only the more formidable.

    For all his youthful vigour, James nevertheless remained deeply imbued with the familial ethos of his father's day. Even before 1848, he had been worried by the signs of dissension between the five houses. Disagreements about the accounts, he warned Lionel in April 1847, were leading "to a state of affairs that in the end everyone deals for himself and this then creates a great deal of unpleasantness." "It is only the reputation, the happiness and the unity of the family which lies close to my heart," he wrote, echoing the familiar admonitions of Mayer Amschel, "and it is as a result of our business dealings that we remain united. If one shares and receives the accounts every day, then everything will stay united God willing." It was to this theme that James returned with passionate urgency in the summer of 1850—a letter of such importance that it deserves to be quoted at length:

    These were themes James harped on throughout 1850 and 1851. "I assure you," he told Lionel's wife Charlotte (whom he had identified as an ally), "the family is everything: it is the only source of the happiness which with God's help we possess, it is our attachment [to one another], it is our unity."

    It is in the light of James's campaign for unity that the partnership contract of 1852 should therefore be understood—not as weakening the ties between the houses, but as preserving them through a compromise whereby the English partners dropped their demands for full independence in exchange for higher rates of return on their capital. As early as 1850, James had outlined the terms of this compromise: in Nat's words, he proposed "that the rate of interest on the capital for us should be raised," provided always that the London house was more profitable than the others. This was also the thrust of his letter to Lionel quoted above; and it was the system finally agreed to in 1852. The British partners received a variety of sweeteners: not only were they permitted to withdraw £260,250 from their share of the firm's capital, but the interest on their share (now 20 per cent of the total) was increased to 3.5 per cent, compared with 3 per cent for James, 2.625 per cent for Carl and 2.5 for Amschel and Salomon. In addition, the rules governing the joint conduct of business were relaxed: henceforth, no partner could be obliged by the majority to go on business trips, while investments in real estate were no longer to be financed from the collective funds. In return for these concessions, the English partners accepted a new system of collaboration. Clause 12 of the agreement stated that "to secure an open and brotherly co-operation and the advancement of their general, reciprocal business interests" the partners would keep one another informed of any transactions worth more than 10 million gulden ( c . £830,000), and offer participations of up to 10 per cent on a reciprocal basis. Otherwise, the terms of all previous agreements not specifically altered by the new contract remained in force including, for example, the procedures for common accounting. This undoubtedly represented a measure of decentralisation. But considering that the alternative (seriously discussed the following year) was the complete liquidation of the collective enterprise, it represented a victory for James.

    What the 1852 agreement did not do was to decide the succession in Frankfurt (other than to rule out Adolph): henceforth, Anselm, Mayer Carl and Wilhelm Carl were all to sign for the Frankfurt house. (It also gave Alphonse and Gustave the right to sign for the Paris house.) Only after the deaths of James's brothers in 1855 did the new structure of the firm emerge (see table 1a). Despite the provisions of his will, all Salomon's share of the collective capital passed to Anselm (an outcome which, for reasons which are obscure, James challenged only half-heartedly on his wife's behalf). Carl's share was divided equally between his sons after the deduction of a seventh, which went to his daughter Charlotte. Finally, and decisively, Amschel's share was divided up in such a way that James and Anselm each received a quarter, as did the sons of Nathan and the sons of Carl. The net effect of all this was to give close to equal power to Anselm, James and the English-born partners, while reducing the influence of Carl's sons. Their influence was further reduced by the decision to put Adolph in charge of the Naples house, and leave Frankfurt to Mayer Carl and his pious brother Wilhelm Carl.

    It was a compromise which worked in practice. After 1852, James was prepared to show a much greater degree of deference to his nephews' wishes than in the past. New Court no longer took orders from James—as can easily be inferred from the diminished length of his letters to London after 1848. Increasingly, he scribbled no more than a postscript to Nat's despatch and often concluded his suggestions about business—as if to remind himself that there was no longer a primus inter pares —with the telling phrase: "Do, dear nephews, what you wish." This was doubtless gratifying to Lionel. Yet the compromise of 1852 meant that the pre-1848 system of co-operation between the five houses was in fact resumed with only a modest degree of decentralisation. The balance sheets of the Paris and London houses reveal a rate of interdependence which was less than had been the case in the 1820s, but it was still substantial. To give just one example, 17.4 per cent of the Paris house's assets in December 1851 were monies owed to it by other Rothschild houses, principally London.

    Moreover, the London partners' assumption that their house would be more profitable than the others proved over-confident. Although the Naples and Frankfurt houses tended to stagnate (for reasons largely beyond the control of Adolph and Mayer Carl), it was James who made much of the running after 1852, expanding his continental railway interests so successfully that by the end of his life the capital of the Paris house far exceeded that of its partners. Anselm too proved unexpectedly adept at restoring the vitality of the shattered Vienna house. It turned out to be far from disadvantageous for the London partners to share in these continental successes. The new system thus inaugurated a new era of equality of status between the London and Paris houses, with Vienna reviving while Frankfurt and Naples declined in their influence.

    As in the past, it was not only through partnership agreements and wills that the Rothschilds maintained the integrity of the family firm. Endogamy continued to play a crucial role. The period between 1848 and 1877 saw no fewer than nine marriages within the family, the manifest purpose of which was to strengthen the links between the different branches. In 1849 Carl's third son Wilhelm Carl married his cousin Anselm's second daughter Hannah Mathilde; a year later, his brother Adolph married her sister Julie; and in 1857 James's eldest son Alphonse married his cousin Lionel's daughter Leonora at Gunnersbury. To list the rest here would be tedious. With a single exception in the years before 1873, those who did not marry other Rothschilds did not stray far from the Jewish "cousinhood." In 1850 Mayer married Juliana Cohen—defeating a rival suit from Joseph Montefiore—while his nephew Gustave married Cécile Anspach in 1859. If Wilhelm Carl had not married a Rothschild, he would have married a Schnapper—a member of his grandmother Gutle's family.

    The brokering of these alliances was, as it had been for nearly two generations, a major preoccupation of the female members of the family. Charlotte made no bones about their rationale. As she enthused on hearing of her brother Wilhelm Carl's engagement to Hannah Mathilde, "My good parents will certainly be pleased that he has not chosen a stranger. For us Jews, and particularly for us Rothschilds, it is better not to come into contact with other families, as it always leads to unpleasantness and costs money." The idea that either the pious groom or the musical bride was making a spontaneous choice was, in this case, nonsense. Charlotte's cousin Betty saw the match in a very different light, reporting to her son that "poor Mathilde only determined regretfully to marry Willy." Now she was "preparing herself with a truly angelic resignation for the sacrifice of her young heart's dearest illusions. It has to be said that the prospect of being Willy's lifelong companion wouldn't entice a young woman brought up as she has been and blessed with a cultivated mind." The question which remained to be resolved was whom Betty's sons Alphonse and Gustave should marry. It seems that Hannah Mathilde had in fact set her heart on the latter, while her sister Julie had hoped to marry Alphonse. But, after teasing her son on the subject, Betty reported that:

    This was good news for Charlotte, who was planning a similar double match between Betty's sons and her daughters Leonora and Evelina. In her diary, she coolly weighed up the respective merits of the two putative sons-in-law:

    She was only half-successful: nine years later it was Alphonse's profile she saw at the altar, alongside her daughter Leonora. By that time, moreover, she had revised her opinion of the bridegroom. Now he seemed "a man, who perhaps for ten of fifteen years has run the round of the world—is completely blasé, can neither admire nor love—and yet demands the entire devotion of his bride, her slavish devotion." Still, she concluded, it was "better so—the man whose passions are dead, whose feelings have lost all freshness, all depth, is likely to prove a safe husband, and the wife will probably find happiness in the discharge, in the fulfilment of her duties. Her disenchantment will be bitter but not lasting." In any case, her daughter attached "much importance to a certain position in the world, and would not like to descend from what she fancies to be the throne of the R's to be the bride of a humbler man." Such sentiments were doubtless based on Charlotte's own experience, and tell us much about the distinctive quality of such arranged marriages.

    The extent to which parental choice was decisive should not, of course, be exaggerated. The fact that Charlotte failed to secure Alphonse's brother for her other daughter suggests that parents were less able to impose their choices of spouse on their children than had previously been the case. Anselm's daughter Julie also successfully repelled the advances of her cousin Wilhelm Carl, as well as those of a more distant relation, Nathaniel Montefiore. On the other hand, her final "choice" of Adolph was strictly governed by her father and future father-in-law, who spent months drawing up the marriage contract; and although such negotiations often involved sums of money being settled individually on the bride-to-be to give her a measure of financial independence, this should not be mistaken for some sort of proto-feminism. There were limits to what the Rothschilds were prepared to inflict on their daughters, as became apparent when old Amschel announced shortly after his wife's death that he wished to remarry none other than his own grand-niece, the much sought-after Julie (who was not yet twenty). The rest of the family—backed up by his doctors—closed ranks against this idea. But it is not known how far their opposition was actuated by fears for his health as opposed to the happiness of the young lady in question: James for one appears to have worried that, if Amschel's proposal were rejected too abruptly, he might withdraw his capital from the firm and marry a stranger.

The Orthodox and the Rearmed

As Charlotte emphasised, endogamy continued to be partly a function of the Rothschilds' Judaism: the family policy remained that sons and daughters could not marry outside their faith (even if they were socially so superior to their co-religionists that they could not marry outside the family either). The extent of Rothschild religious commitment in this period should not be underestimated: if anything, it was greater than had been the case in the 1820s and 1830s, and this was another important source of familial unity in the period after 1848. James continued to be the least strict in his observance. "Well, I wish you a hearty good Sabbath," he wrote to his nephews and son in 1847. "I hope you are having a good time and a good hunt. Are you eating well, drinking well and sleeping well as is the wish of your loving uncle and father?" As the existence of such a letter itself testifies, he saw nothing wrong with being at his desk on the Sabbath. He and Carl also were conspicuously erratic in their attendance at synagogue (unlike their wives).

    Yet James remained as firmly convinced of the functional importance of the family's Jewish identity as he had been in the days of Hannah Mayer's apostasy. Although he very nearly forgot the date of Passover in 1850, he was nevertheless willing to cancel a business trip to London in order to read the Haggadah. He was happy to receive the Frankfurt rabbi Leopold Stein's new book in 1860 (though the size of the donation he sent Stein is not recorded). His wife Betty was as secular-minded as her husband, but she too had a strong sense that observance was a social if not a spiritual imperative. When she heard that her son Alphonse had attended the synagogue in New York, she declared herself "over the moon," adding:

That said, it was evidently something of a surprise to her that Alphonse had gone to the synagogue of his own volition.

    Wilhelm Carl meanwhile remained the only Orthodox member of the younger generation. Continuing his uncle Amschel's campaign against the Reformist tendencies of the Frankfurt community, he supported the creation of a new Israelite Religious Community for Orthodox believers, donating the lion's share of the funds to build a new synagogue in the Schützenstrasse. Yet he opposed the outright schism advocated by the new community's rabbi, Samson Raphael Hirsch, who wished his followers to withdraw altogether from the main Frankfurt community. Orthodox though he was, Wilhelm Carl shared the Rothschild view that diversity of practice should not compromise Jewish communal unity.

    His English cousins also continued to consider themselves "good Israelites," observing holy days and avoiding work on the Sabbath. James once teased Anthony when he was visiting Paris that he liked to pick up his prayer books, an impression of piety confirmed when his nephew dutifully fasted at Yom Kippur in 1849, despite fearing (wrongly) that it was medically inadvisable given the outbreak of cholera then sweeping Paris. It was typical that he and Lionel had to supply not with matzot when he was in Paris during Passover. Even when on holiday in Brighton, Lionel and his family celebrated Yom Kippur, fasting and praying on the Day of Atonement. But the four London-born brothers were not Orthodox in the way that Wilhelm Carl was. In 1851 Disraeli unthinkingly sent Charlotte and Lionel a large joint of venison he had been given by the Duke of Portland:

He seems to have been right, though it seems unlikely that this was a reflection of love for the aristocracy; the fact was that Lionel's family, like James's, did not keep strict kosher. Indeed, Mayer was such an enthusiast for venison that he defended stag hunting in a political speech at Folkestone in 1866!

   On broader religious questions, the English brothers inclined towards the Reform movement, such as it was in England. When an attempt was made (in 1853) to exclude representatives of the Reform-inclined West London Synagogue from their places on the Board of Deputies because they had fallen foul of the conservative Chief Rabbi, Lionel spoke out against what he called "popery." "He had every respect for the ecclesiastical authorities," he declared, "but he was not going to be led by them as by a Catholic priest. They might be, and no doubt were, very learned men but they had no right to enquire of him whether he kept one day or two days of the festivals"—an important distinction between Reform and Orthodox practice. Such views may explain why the Reform community in Frankfurt had appealed to Lionel for help in their struggle against the dominant Orthodoxy the previous year.

Product details

• ASIN ‏ : ‎ 0140240845
• Publisher ‏ : ‎ Penguin Books; Revised ed. edition (November 1, 1999)
• Language ‏ : ‎ English
• Paperback ‏ : ‎ 544 pages
• ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 9780140240849
• ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0140240849
• Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 1.18 pounds
• Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6.02 x 1.15 x 9.2 inches
• #898 in Wall Stickers & Murals

About the author

Niall ferguson.

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).

Customer reviews

Customer Reviews, including Product Star Ratings help customers to learn more about the product and decide whether it is the right product for them.

To calculate the overall star rating and percentage breakdown by star, we don’t use a simple average. Instead, our system considers things like how recent a review is and if the reviewer bought the item on Amazon. It also analyzed reviews to verify trustworthiness.

• Sort reviews by Top reviews Most recent Top reviews

Top reviews from the United States

There was a problem filtering reviews right now. please try again later..

Top reviews from other countries

• Amazon Newsletter
• About Amazon
• Accessibility
• Sustainability
• Press Center
• Investor Relations
• Amazon Devices
• Amazon Science
• Sell on Amazon
• Sell apps on Amazon
• Supply to Amazon
• Protect & Build Your Brand
• Become an Affiliate
• Become a Delivery Driver
• Start a Package Delivery Business
• Advertise Your Products
• Self-Publish with Us
• Host an Amazon Hub
• › See More Ways to Make Money
• Amazon Visa
• Amazon Store Card
• Amazon Secured Card
• Amazon Business Card
• Shop with Points
• Credit Card Marketplace
• Reload Your Balance
• Amazon Currency Converter
• Your Account
• Your Orders
• Shipping Rates & Policies
• Amazon Prime
• Returns & Replacements
• Manage Your Content and Devices
• Recalls and Product Safety Alerts
• Conditions of Use
• Privacy Notice
• Consumer Health Data Privacy Disclosure
• Your Ads Privacy Choices

• Skip to primary navigation
• Skip to content
• Skip to primary sidebar
• Skip to footer
• Studies Near You
• Online Bible Studies

Lifeway Women

Lifeway Women provides biblical solutions for churches, small groups and individuals, engaging women to know Jesus, to seek His kingdom and be spiritually transformed and equipped for service.

• Free Downloads

Prepare Him Room: Experience Christmas Joy with Jennifer Rothschild

The Christmas season is often busy, filled with last-minute gift shopping and large family gatherings. But we want to encourage you to take time to stop and truly make room in your heart for the true meaning of the season.

We’re excited to announce this year’s Prepare Him Room Virtual Event with Jennifer Rothschild. This event is an invitation to intentionally seek Jesus amid the holiday rush. Throughout the event, you’ll be immersed in an atmosphere of worship, encouragement, and teaching that will inspire you to create room in your heart, home, and community for the transformative power of Jesus Christ. Whether you join on your own, with your small group, or host at your church, everyone will be encouraged to celebrate the birth of our Savior, embrace the true meaning of Christmas, and prepare Him room.

Streaming on December 1, 2024, with access until December 31, 2024.

Starting as low as $15. 

Learn more!

Share this:

• Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)
• Click to share on X (Opens in new window)

Let’s Stay in Touch

Sign up for our weekly newsletter to be the first to hear about new studies, events, giveaways, and more..

• Phone This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged.

Foll ow @LifewayWomen

Instagram Twitter Facebook Pinterest YouTube