Review

General Books

Niall Ferguson, a young Scottish historian who teaches Modern history at Oxford University, makes an impressive contribution to the literature of the Rothschilds. He states that his "primary concern" in writing The House of Rothschild, an ambitious and absorbing biography, is to explain the beginnings and growth of a multinational partnership which was "for most of the century between 1815 and 1914 easily the biggest bank in the world." The international bond market, which it had an important hand in developing, is the "core" of the book. The immense financial influence the Rothschilds had at their disposal is why diplomacy was, next to finance, their greatest interest. Ferguson notes the family's other forms of financial enterprise and emphasizes their importance (frequently underrated) as industrial investors in railway development and mining production. He intends his book to be "a political as much as it is a financial history." The close relationship between the Rothschilds and the rulers of European states is amply described; the Rothschild banks were located in political centers of power: London, Paris, and Vienna, as well as in Frankfurt and Naples. (Most of the leading politicians in nineteenth-century Europe are listed in the index.) Ferguson's "central aim" is to "illuminate these relationships," hitherto an area little explored.	1
The House of Rothschild is not limited to economic history. As Ferguson points out, the firm's history is "inseparable" from the family's history, which includes such matters as the powerful influence Mayer Amschel Rothschild had on his five sons (their many references to their father after his death went unnoticed by previous historians), and the family's commitment to Judaism, to endogamous marriages, and to education and the arts. Family history spills over into social history. There are, for instance, recurrent accounts of efforts to achieve social assimilation and status, and of campaigns--to win civil and political rights for coreligionists in Frankfurt and throughout Europe. Confronted by an "exceptional family" that inspired legends, Ferguson produces a scholarly book--a cultural biography based on research in three Rothschild archives--that includes previously unknown or inaccessible documents as well as countless letters. Influenced by the historian Leopold von Ranke who urged that history be written as "actually happened," Ferguson achieves the thoroughness, objectivity, and historicity--"part of the purpose of this book"--that had been lacking in earlier works.	2
This first of two volumes (the second covers the period 1849-1999) and contains essential reading for high school, college and university teachers of European history courses ranging from the introductory to the most advanced levels. Reading parts of it would strengthen students' scholarly competence, and also would improve their instruction. Selected passages used in lesson preparation and teaching would give an enduring interest to topics for discussion purposes. Such lessons might include "Life in Frankfurt's Jewish ghetto" (pp. 35-41), "The Dual Revolution: The Impact of the French Revolution and the British Industrial Revolution on the Rothschilds" (pp. 47-49), "The Sweep of Revolution in Europe in 1830" (p. 210), and "The Revolution of 1848 and Its Differences from 1830" (pp. 437-480)--the best analysis of this last topic I have seen. Further, there are numerous quotations, anecdotes, excerpts from letters, and cartoons that would be motivational devices to provoke interest in and to elicit the theme of the lesson. For example, there are sections which could serve as a springboard to discussions of European anti-Semitism: caricaturists' views of the Rothschilds' rise to financial power in the 1820s (pp. 431-436) and Rothschild family members' responses to the reactions of pamphleteers and the press to the great railway accident of July 8, 1846 (pp. 431-436). Assessing the impact of anti-Semitism on Germany and Austria-Hungary and on Adolf Hitler following the defeat of the Central Powers in World War I is a question that provides an application for such a lesson.	3
Useful on a suggested reading list for high school (Advanced Placement European History classes) and college students, Ferguson's book should also be required reading for graduate students. Students are bound to find his arguments moving (e.g., his contention that the Rothschild brothers were not wedded to reactionary regimes, but recognized reform instead, even the violent kind, when it happened. Above all, students can discover that this book is as much about war and peace, and about reform and revolution in nineteenth-century Europe (where the Concert of Powers maintained an uneasy peace), as it is a dynastic history.	4
New York, New York   Bernard Hirschhorn

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