The House of Rothschild — Niall Ferguson

Ferguson's history of the Rothschild banking dynasty traces the family from its origins in the Frankfurt ghetto to its position at the centre of nineteenth-century European finance. The book is as much about the relationship between money and power — how the Rothschilds financed states and wars, navigated anti-Semitism, and shaped the political landscape of the century — as about the family itself. Ferguson is particularly good on how Jewish emancipation and financial power intersected, and on what the Rothschilds' story reveals about the nature of European capitalism.

'Magnificent. Ferguson has written a history of the modern world through the lens of one extraordinary family.' — The Independent. 'The best financial history of the nineteenth century.' — Financial Times