Customer Reviews

The French Rothschilds: The Great Banking Dynasty Through Two Turbulent Centuries

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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!!!