The French Rothschilds: The Great Banking Dynasty Through Two Turbulent Centuries [Hardcover]

Herbert R. Lottman (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 11, 1995

An award-winning biographer's penetrating portrait of the most glamorous branch of the international family, the one that came to prominence under Napoleon, and has ever since been locked in a turbulent relationship with that country. Of the many books written about the Rothschilds, this is the first to focus so closely on the French branch--perhaps the most fascinating side of this astonishing family. 8-page black-and-white inserts.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Lottman, until now primarily a literary biographer with books on Camus, Flaubert and Colette, widens his focus here to embrace a huge subject over a colossal time span: the banking family, originating in a Frankfurt ghetto, that came to great financial power in Napoleonic France and has retained it through extraordinary vicissitudes to the present day. The Rothschilds, Lottman shows, were politically canny, utterly trustworthy, remarkably clannish (it was unthinkable, during their first century, for them to marry outside the family, let alone outside the Jewish faith) and successful in dozens of endeavors beyond banking, from railroads to horse racing to winemaking in several countries including England, the United States and Israel. Several times their adopted France turned against them. They were calumniated by a fiercely anti-Semitic press in the late 19th century (watching aghast as the Dreyfus case became a national scandal). Anticapitalist Communist threats shadowed them in the Popular Front period of the 1930s. The Nazis and the Vichy government competed to see who could seize their wealth and artistic treasures, while the family scattered around the world, to London and New York City. A Socialist French government in 1981 again nationalized the Rothschilds' holdings, and only in recent years have the original family's many offspring come to terms with a still vigorous but shrunken empire. Lottman tells all this with an abundance of detail, a keen sense of period and an awesome grasp of the family's many personages and complex financial structure. If his story lacks the enlivening, humanizing anecdote, this can probably be blamed on his reticent subjects.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

Lottman, author of several works on French figures (e.g., Flaubert, LJ 2/1/89) and history (The Fall of Paris, June 1940, LJ 2/1/89), now tackles the saga of one of the most influential families in Europe?indeed, the world. In France, when greedy children ask for expensive items, their parents ask, "Do you take me for a Rothschild?" The Rothschilds have been the subjects of numerous other books, but none has focused on the French branch so intently. From Napoleon to Mitterand, this Jewish family, whose patriarch started as a money handler to the court, has built a massive empire and endured fierce opposition from many parts. The most recent blow occurred when the Socialist Mitterand was elected president of France and Parliament voted to nationalize the Rothschild empire. Lottman makes use of a wealth of primary and secondary resources in writing this in-depth chronology. His writing style is engaging and accessible. Recommended for all French studies and banking collections.?Lisa K. Miller, Paradise Valley Community Coll. Lib., Phoenix
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 405 pages
• Publisher: Crown; 1st edition (April 11, 1995)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0517592290
• ISBN-13: 978-0517592298
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.3 x 1.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #870,599 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars " A humane, demystifying portrait of a huge banking cartel", August 9, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: The French Rothschilds: The Great Banking Dynasty Through Two Turbulent Centuries (Hardcover)

Upon perusing the book, many questions raced through my mind. However i thought the book was well written in a friendly and respectful style. Most historians paint the family in "Shylock" terms, perhaps justifiably so. Mr. Lottman is at his best when uncovering early bank ledgers and correspondance, not to mention the so-called anti-semitic diatribes of Rothschilds' detractors. However the failure to document the Jewish population vis-a-vis the population of others in the countries they inhabited, leaves the reader to assume that their numbers were commensurate with that of Europeans! This is a rather "strange" oversight for someone as astute and scholarly as Lottman. Maybe the reader would then understand the level of animosity and action taken against Jews. Another "faux pas" was the omission of a pamphlett known as the "Protocols of Zion", the bible of anti- semites; inducted in the British Museum in 1905, said to have come out of the Zionist Conference in Switzerland(1896), it reads as a world plot by the Elders to rule over the "Goyim" or cattle(Gentiles). Could this be the pamphlett that motivated Hitler and other tyrants? One never knows reading Lottman's book. Lastly, the race for African raw materiel and labor was despicable and inhumane at the least!! Lottman never weighs the impact on African lives and even glosses over the sizable death toll left behind by the exploiters! He makes you feel that industrialization and exploitation were a natural come-about and the Rothschilds, who financed many of these ventures were shrewd and virtuous. Aside from these "obscene" oversights, the book is still a must-read for serious students of comparative-history and even lay-persons. Lottman still delivers with an eloquent description of 19th century Europe...in all her panorama, warts and all. For those looking for a good read on a powerful family with many idiosyncrasies, super-ambitions and a penchant for making dough, this is it!!!