Description

In The Women of Rothschild Natalie Livingstone reveals the role of women in shaping the legacy of the famous Rothschild dynasty synonymous with wealth and power

From the East End of London to the Eastern seaboard of the United States from Spitalfields to Scottish castles from Bletchley Park to Buchenwald and from the Vatican to Palestine Natalie Livingstone follows the extraordinary lives of the Rothschild women from the dawn of the nineteenth century to the early years of the twentyfirst

As Jews in a Christian society and women in a deeply patriarchal family they were outsiders Excluded from the family bank they forged their own distinct dynasty of daughters and nieces mothers and aunts They became influential hostesses and talented diplomats choreographing electoral campaigns advising prime ministers advocating for social reform and trading on the stock exchange Misfits and conformists conservatives and idealists performers and introverts they mixed with everyone from Queen Victoria to Chaim Weizmann Rossini to Isaiah Berlin and the Duke of Wellington to Alec Guinness as well as with amphetaminedealers suffragists and avantgarde artists Rothschild women helped bring down ghetto walls in early nineteenthcentury Frankfurt inspired some of the most remarkable cultural movements of the Victorian period and in the midtwentieth century burst into America where they patronized Thelonious Monk and dragraced through Manhattan with Miles Davis

Absorbing and compulsive The Women of Rothschild gives voice to the complicated privileged and gifted women whose vision and tenacity shaped history

A Macmillan Audio production from St Martins Press