Founder: A Portrait of the First Rothschild and His Time

by Amos Elon

Book Overview

Mayer Amschel Rothschild (1744-1812), patriarch of the Rothschild clan, fathered five illustrious sons who made the family name a by-word for banking, fabulous wealth, and Jewish philanthropy. Israeli... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0670868574
• ISBN13: 9780670868575
• Release Date: November 1996
• Publisher: Viking Books
• Length: 208 Pages
• Weight: 1.04 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 6.2" x 9.3"

Customer Reviews

The First Rothschild

The author says this wasn't an "official" or "authorized" biography of Mayer Amschel Rothschild but he was given encouragement and support from the Rothschild family including access to the families private archives. Elon does not intentionally paint a conspiratorial picture of Rothschild but its impossible not to see him that way for me. There was more going on here than him wanting to better his own and his families life. His description of Rothschild worming his foot in the door by selling the crown Prince in Germany collectable coins, Rothschilds complete obsession with money, the secret passages, hidden cellars and trap doors where they hid wealth so as not to be taxed and kept their real financial records as opposed to their doctored ones, having secret codes that he communicated with in letters to his sons after they set up shop around Europe. I seriously couldn't help but being mentally barraged with images of Shylock from Shakespeares Merchant of Venice and scenes from The Eternal Jew. Maybe old Mayer Amschel created the mold and stereotype. He also married all his children into the richest Jewish families in Europe and for what its worth this book says that 2/3 of Mayer Amschel Rothschilds Grandchildren married each other. There is also a lot of stuff about the eggshells the Rothschilds had to walk on with the Royalty and Elon talks of the Rothschilds being "disenfranchised", but its kind of hard for me to take the claim of them being "disenfranchised" too serious when they were hobknobbing with Royalty and controlling huge sums of money. I think the Nobility kept the Jews on a short leash because they knew that they were a conspiratorial people. But greed won over the Royalty and Nobility in the end of course because by the mid 1800s the Rothschilds had more control over Europes finances than anyone had ever had before. So the oppressed German Jew thing doesn't go far with me when I know the Royalty were selling off German peasants as Hessian soldiers as cannon fodder to die in wars for other countries. I doubt even low class Jews had it any worse than the German peasantry and to say the moneyed class of Jews did is utterly laughable. Overall this is a very good book even if you have to read between the lines here and there.

Illuminating the Myth of Rothschild

Captivating either in spite of or because of it's extremely short length.Most important thing to note about this book, other then the observation that it is a very good book, is that author really does "paint" a portrait that includes both the Man AND his time. I felt the attention to the society of Rothschild really paid off at the end of the book. Rothschild is important not merely because he generated a truly epic amount of wealth for his family, but because he serves as a symbol of the manner in which capitalism changed the lives of those who practiced it.Certainly, the Rothschild clan has been the focus of much anti-semitism and conspiracy theory. As a Jew, I always felt such talk was ridiculous, but I was interested to find the so-called "grain of truth" which, coupled with a long standing, virulent history of anti-semitism served to transform the Rothschilds into a focus for so much bile.For example, the Rothschild's lent signifigant amounts of capital to the family which held the postal monopoly for the Holy Roman Empire ("Thurn and Taxis" Post). This relationship enabled the Rothschild's to take advantage of the "intelligence gathering" capabilities of the Postal system to their benefit.This was a theme at the heart of Thomas Pynchon's excellent novel "The Crying of Lot 49". Which I recommend to those who enjoyed in this book.Like Niall Ferguson's two part saga of the family history, this book was written in cooperation with the Rothschild family.I recommend this book both for the portrait of the man as well as the portrait of the place and time.

Model biography.

Model biography about the life of the founder of the Rotschild dynasty.Out of the Jewish ghetto in Frankfurt Meyer Rotschild became Court_factor (business manager) of the richest man in the world in late 18th/early 19th century: the landgrave of Hessen.The starting point of his fortune were gold coin transactions with the landgrave.After establishing his financial house in Frankfurt, he sent his sons to France and England, where his son Nathan made a fortune during the continental blockade decreed by Napoleon; he succeeded in continuing to trade illegally in English goods with a margin of 50 per cent.Excellent picture of the Jewish ghetto in Frankfurt and of the social position of the Jews at the beginning of the 19th century. This book throws also a bleak light on the social condition of the poor, where soldiers were ruthlessly pressed into service and afterwards sold (a common business practice!) and where children were summarily hanged for stealing a loaf of bread.A model biography: all mentioned facts are based on legal and other documents.This book gives short shrift to all myths surrounding the origin of the Rotschild fortune.

Interesting history lesson about dynasty's founding father

Heard the taped version of FOUNDER: A PORTRAIT OF THEFIRST ROTHSCHILD AND HIS TIME by Amos Elon . . . MeyerAmschel Rotschild (1744-1812), the patriarch of the clan, fathered five illustrious sons who made the family name a byword for banking, fabulous wealth and Jewish philanthropy . . .yet prior to this book, I had known nothing about the dynasty's founding father . . . Jews had been severely restricted in most areas of their lives in the ghetto of Frankfurt . . .how one man was able to get beyond that impediment and succeed made for an interesting history lesson . . . I also enjoyed getting a senseof how it was to live in the eighteenth-century.

Enlightening and vividly dimensional portrait!

Mr. Elon writes a rich, enlightening, and engrossing portrait of a pivotal figure in European history. The context of 17th-18th century Frankfurt and Europe adds dimension that has to be read. A wonderful read and a wonderful gift. Bravo!