I am not a history buff, but I certainly find it fascinating. I know that history is not really an absolute, that there are many ways to interpret it and record it. I also realize that most history books are not perfect. In particular, I am referring to schoolbooks used in high school and college.
I recently looked at several history texts, which in all ways looked very competent. I wanted to see what they said about the European Rosthchilds, the powerful Jewish banking dynasty that held great influence and immense wealth for several hundred years. Don’t worry, I am not going to get all conspiracy on you guys-I just wanted to know the basic outline and facts of the family and how they influenced European history.
But to my surprise, there was nothing to be found on them. Not a small article, nor a paragraph- not even a footnote.
My question is: shouldn’t the Rosthchilds deserve at least a mention in history books? Do the editors and writers of these books think it is vulgar to include considerations of history’s money men, and how money can greatly influence politics and history?
Like I said I am not a history buff, so I may be a tad out of my depth. But it’s a question I greatly want to have answered, and since it seems a bit debatable, I put it here.
When many of the the crowned heads of Europe owed money to Rothschild, the joke went: “Rothschild may not be the king of the Jews, but he is the Jew of the kings.” ;j
It depends, obviously, on the focus and depth of the history book you’re reading. If it’s a broad survey of the social and political history of Europe from (say) the foundation of Rome to the present day, covered in 300 pages, its probably unreasonable to expect it to deal with an individual family, however politically or economically powerful.
On the other hand, if it’s a detailed study of social change and the rise of liberalism, socialism and democracy in Western and Central Europe from 1815 to 1914, yes, you’d expect the Rothschilds to be mentioned – but probably only some of them. And only in passing. And only to illustrate other, more general points about, say, the concentration of wealth, or the power of bankers, or the development of transnational financial businesses, or the emancipation of Jews; you wouldn’t necessarily expect a history of the family.
The Rothschilds and a few other families became astonishingly influential by comparison with other (non-ruling) families, but in terms of the significant factors affecting the unfolding of modern European history their influence was modest compared to, say, the French revolution, the Napoleonic wars, the Congress of Vienna, the industrialisation of Europe, the development of the railways, the unification of Germany and of Italy, Karl Marx, the decline of Ottoman Turkey, the rise of nationalism, the invention of the telegraph . . .
Exactly. As an example Edward Crankshaw’s The Fall of the House of Hapsburg ( 1963, reprint 1983 by Penguin Books ), which covers the Hapsburg state from the coronation of Franz Joseph to the empire’s final dissolution ( a period and place when/where the Rothschilds were at their most prominent), mentions them three times, but as UDS says - only in passing. Like those earlier Hapsburg financiers, the Fuggers, you’ll find them mentioned ( perhaps a just a little less often than the Fuggers for various reasons, including the Fuggers very prominent place in funding Charles V’s wars, his defaults that ruined them, and their somewhat greater historic precedence ) mostly as a side issue.
You’s pretty much have to get either a volume dedicated just to them, perhaps a work on European banking families in general, or one on the financial system of 19th to early-20th century Europe, to have much hope at comprehensive coverage.
This is a book no conspiracy theorist should be without. I think there are multiple power games going on. Lots of players. Calling them conspiracies could be accurate but it clouds the issue which is what the power gamers want.
Well, of course, the Medici did become a ruling family, and most of the attention that history pays to them focuses on the period when they were the rulers of Florence (and, in due course, of Tuscany).
It’s outside the OP’s restriction to textbooks and I’d guess it’s the book by him that’s most likely out of print, but one of Simon Schama’s early books was Two Rothschilds and the Land of Israel.
Again it’s not a textbook, but it is worth mentioning Fritz Stern’s Gold and Iron (Knopf, 1977). It’s a biography of Gerson von Bleichroder, who was Bismarck’s private banker and who came from a family who very explicitly took the Rothschilds as their role model. Stern’s influencial argument is that Bleichroder was central to Bismarck’s career and that the latter’s detailed tactics and timing during the unification of Germany and elsewhere can only be understood in terms of an alliance with Bleichroder, where the banker has to be able to raise the cash to fund the political decisions.
Stern’s main case is that the likes of the Rothschilds are important in the period: two out of the four quotations he uses to preface the book refer to them by name in making exactly this point.
The Rise of the House of Rothschild by Count Egon Caesar Corti, translated from the German by Brian and Beatrix Lunn. NY: Blue Ribbon Books (1928)
The English Rothschilds by Richard Davis. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press (1983)
The French Rothschilds: The Great Banking Dynasty Through Two Turbulent Centuries by Herbert R. Lottman. NY: Crown (1995)
From Court Jews to the Rothschilds: art, patronage and power: 1600-1800 edited by Vivian B. Mann and Richard I. Cohen. Munich: Prestel-Verlag (1996)
If you speak French (or do we call that language “Freedom” now??)…try this one: Histoire de la maison Rothschild by Bertrand Gille. Geneva: Droz (1965-)
The House of Rothschild by Niall Ferguson. NY: Viking (1998)
The magnificent Rothschilds by Cecil Roth. NY: Pyramid Publication (1962)
These are just a few of the books available on the Rothschild family. I have done no real research into them except for where it had direct bearing on my current research project (the history of Jewish immigration through Galveston, TX in 1907-1914)