The story of how Nathan Mayer Rothschild financed Wellington's victory over Napoleon at Waterloo.

The subject of transnational lives has only recently gained importance in historical research. With its transnational approach to “mobility and biography,” this volume brings together research on aspects of mobility and biography across different times and spaces to open up new interdisciplinary perspectives. Networks, movements and the capacity to become socially or spatially mobile in and across Europe are not only analysed as structural factors, but rather seen as connected to concrete practices of mobility among different groups in the spheres of business, politics and the arts: from Jewish merchants via legal and financial advisors all the way to musicians.

NEW ADDITIONAL CONTENTS: More than 30 illustrations Currencies conversion Two painting that built the legend of their fortune BRIEF PRESENTATION: History of the rise of the Rothschilds (1743-1886), the celebrated German-Jewish dynasty of international bankers. Full-case histories in this book... TABLE OF CONTENTS: 0. Preface. 1. About the Jews. 2. Mayer Amschel Rothschild. The Frankfort firm. 3. The progress of the firm. 4. Anselme Mayer Rothschild. The Frankfort firm (continued). 5. Nathan Mayer Rothschild. The London firm. 6. Lionel de Rothschild. The London firm (continued). 7. Baron Karl von Rothschild. The Naples firm. 8. Baron Salomon von Rothschild. The Vienna firm. 9. Baron James de Rothschild. The Paris firm. 10. Rothschildiana. EXTRACT: Nothing could demonstrate more clearly Nathan Rothschild's profound confidence in his own powers, and his resolute character, than this simple narrative. So rapid was his success in Manchester, that before many years had passed he found even that was too limited a sphere for the mind which could grapple with three profits. He accordingly at the beginning of this century established himself in London, where he was afterwards destined to make such a name. Previous to his arrival in London, the business of the parent house in Frankfort had passed through the hands of the banking firm of Van Notten, but Nathan Mayer at once assumed the control and management of the firm's interests in England. In the concluding portion of his letter, Sir T. F. Buxton writes: - "I forgot to say that soon after Rothschild came to England Bonaparte invaded Germany. 'The Prince of Hesse Cassel, ' said Rothschild, 'gave my father his money; there was no time to be lost: he sent it to me. I had £600,000 arrive unexpectedly by post; and I put it to such good use that the Prince made me a present of all his wine and linen. '" The immense profits realized by these early transactions, Nathan Rothschild soon found means to multiply. It was a period when a man gifted with his remarkable shrewdness and business capacities was bound to succeed. However great his folly may have seemed at the time when Napoleon's forces were trampling all Europe beneath their feet, Nathan Mayer learnt to form a favourable idea of the immense strength and resources of England, and his calculations as to the ultimate issue of the struggle were all in favour of his adopted country. Acting on his convictions, he on one occasion purchased a large amount of bills of the Duke of Wellington at a heavy discount, but knowing that the credit and faith of the country were pledged to their payment he felt he had made a good bargain. To quote his own words once more: - "When I settled in London, the East India Company had £800,000 worth in gold to sell. I went to the sale, and bought it all. I knew the Duke of Wellington must have it. I had bought a great many of his bills at a discount. The Government sent for me and said they must have it. When they had got it, they did not know how to get it to Portugal. I undertook all that, and I sent it through France, and that was the best business I ever did." Nathan Mayer was generally termed a merchant, but, although his commercial transactions were large and important, the scene of his greatest and most profitable triumphs was the Stock Exchange. At a time when the prices of the Funds and all securities were subject to violent fluctuations, the temptations to a great capitalist, with the speculative instinct so strongly developed as in Nathan Mayer, were irresistible. [continued in the book...]

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 twenty-first. 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 amphetamine-dealers, suffragists and avant-garde artists. Rothschild women helped bring down ghetto walls in early nineteenth-century Frankfurt, inspired some of the most remarkable cultural movements of the Victorian period, and in the mid-twentieth century burst into America, where they patronized Thelonious Monk and drag-raced 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.

In the past two centuries, the Rothschild family has been at the center of great events in Europe and the world, such as the defeat of Napoleon at Waterloo and the development of the Suez Canal. In this National Book Award finalist, Frederic Morton brings the family to life, starting with Mayer of Frankfurt, longtime adviser to Germany’s princes, who broke through the barriers of the Jewish ghetto and placed his family on the road to wealth and power, followed by Lord Alfred in London, Baron Philippe in Paris, and many others. “[Morton’s] tale grows fascinating, luxuriating in the social and human details of what happened once the Rothschild tribe had financed England, bailed out the returning French Bourbons, helped Austria intervene in Italy and lent millions to the Holy See itself.” — William Harlan Hale, The New York Times “Hardly a page without sparkle. Morton writes a chromium-plate style... [he] enables the reader to grasp some of the fundamental secrets of the Rothschild success — above all, its endurance.” — New York Herald Tribune Books “Vivid, witty and perceptive.” — Saturday Review

Ever since the house of Rothschild first rose to pre-eminence in the turbulent era of the Napoleonic wars, mythology has surrounded the family and its firms. Conservative aristocrats, radical democrats, socialists from Marx onwards, anti-semites from Wagner to Hitler - all have reserved a special place in their critiques of modern capitalism for the Rothschilds. They have been portrayed as the power behind not just one throne but many. They have been charged with financing revolutions and counter-revolutions. They have been seen as the final arbiters of war and peace in Europe. This book is the first of two volumes presenting a history of the house of Rothschild that reveals the phenomenal economic success of this secretive family.