The House of Rothschild by Niall Ferguson.

The House of Rothschild is a two volume banking history. While the enthusiast of social history or biography will still find useful information, the main focus is on the rise of the first international bank. Those seeking a “Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous” show should look elsewhere. While this offering lacks sensationalism, there is a good deal of drama: Political and economic relationships, strategies for overcoming the competition and the rise from a poor Frankfurt underclass to eminent positions of influence in Europe, provide genuine plot without superficial glitz.

The research that went into the writing of this tome is impressive. Ferguson scoured the archives of London, Paris and Moscow. The richest trove of information he uses as evidence, is correspondence between the partners and relatives. There are 5830 source notes and 53 pages of bibliography between the two volumes. There had to be days for the author where a mallet to the head appeared preferable to reading another letter.

Given the importance of economics to the subject, one will need to have either an understanding of monetary investment instruments, or a desire to Google frequently. To offer a personal example, as a representative of the business impaired, (even with the assistance of the internet), I found myself periodically confused. Sometimes I could not even understand how one or another strategy could yield profit. Ferguson does not dumb-down the math for his audience. But those who have far to go in their understanding of economics will learn a great deal in the course of these two volumes if they are willing to apply themselves. Since finance is an often neglected area by history enthusiasts, a true education that expands one’s repertoire of ideas can take place. Those who already have the tools of commerce will find this topic easier and more entertaining.

Because this story is about money, and because the Rothschild Bank placed its acquisition above every other concern, there are readers who will find the company’s amorality repellent.  There are plenty of political histories and people’s histories that will discuss the victims of such policies. While there is a satisfaction to venting moral outrage, that is neither the purpose of this book nor the job of a historian. Ferguson does a heroic job of maintaining a neutral tone while quoting callous letters between the Rothschild brothers. These include their warm relationship with Klemens Von Metternich (who made the Hapsburg Empire a police state), their secret deal to sell guns to Russia so that the Czar could more easily suppress Polish independence and other profitable activities. Like a cheetah, engineered by evolution to run down and kill antelope, the Rothschild international bank was a perfect, ruthless animal. One can admire or abhor this bank’s heartless indifference to any consideration other than money, as one wishes. That said, it is important for a balanced individual to read books on both the cheetahs and the antelopes of history.

Ferguson does spend time discussing anti-Semitism. But again, this has nothing to do with moral outrage. Anti-Semitism is a topic of the book because it affected the banking business and the Rothschild’s ability to secure contracts. Ferguson makes it an issue because most gentiles who regarded or participated in the transactions of the Rothschilds made it an issue. The author keeps his eye on the business ball.

While Ferguson’s abilities are laudable, no one should ever expect perfection. The author occasionally stands in awe of his subject’s power and gives them too much credit for influence. When French Foreign Minister Jacques Lafitte supports war with Austria, a concerned James Rothschild approaches King Louis Philippe. A week later, Lafitte resigns. The author interprets “It would appear that James’s ‘talking to the king had the desired effect,’” (Ferguson, v.1, p. 240), as if James’s intervention was the only determining factor in the resignation. Additionally, there are maddeningly frequent quotations of novels by Benjamin Disraeli. Yes, Disraeli knew the family intimately and fictionalized them in his novels. But “fictionalized” is the operative word. These many quotations are not facts of history. One cannot determine facts from them.  However, my not infrequent nitpicking testifies to how enthusiastically I read his long history. Ferguson’s flair for writing and ability to keep the story engaging causes one to become absorbed in his narrative. A historian who can make a banking history come alive for a business impaired reader cannot be ignored.

Ferguson, Niall. The House of Rothschild. New York: Viking Penguin, 1998.

Eminent Victorians by Lytton Strachey

Eminent Victorians is Lytton Strachey’s 1918 British best seller. It contains the biographies of four people considered to have exemplified the era’s morality and standards (Henry Edward Manning, Florence Nightingale, Thomas Arnold and Charles Gordon). In its time, this book was a quiet innovation. It challenged the iconic worship of the 19^th Century’s upright British saints. It provided an alternative to the “standard biography,” which “commemorate[s] the dead” with “ill-digested masses of material” (Strachey, p. viii).  As a result, it reads like a grouping of literary profiles with more art than history.

Strachey wrote with an arch humor that will leave a wicked smile on your face. He stealthily assassinates Lord Acton as “a historian to whom learning and judgment had not been granted in equal proportions” (Strachey, p. 100). He slowly roasts Lord Hartington as a man beloved by his listeners for being dull: “It was the greatest comfort…they could always be absolutely certain that he would never…be either brilliant or subtle, or surprising or impassioned or profound…as they sat listening to his speeches, in which considerations of stolid plainness succeeded one another with complete flatness…they felt…supported by the colossal tedium” (Strachey, p. 315). It’s funny, but it’s not history.

An historian might find herself a bit frustrated with the presentation and quality of information. In service to creating a tasteful work, Strachey sometimes skimps on the facts or passes-over issues that would cause his readers to blush. Florence Nightingale and Sidney Herbert had a close working relationship and a deep friendship. The author describes this relationship as “an intimacy so utterly untinctured not only by passion itself but by the suspicion of it” (Strachey, p. 167). With all due respect to the chastity of Ms. Nightingale and the marital fidelity of Mr. Herbert, there is no way Strachey could have known this.

Though his style is largely restrained, amusing, and dilettantish, Strachey can be relentless when he has an opinion. One central theme throughout the biographies is that the idols of Victorian England are somewhat cracked. Cardinal Manning is not just the genial saint of British Catholicism; he is also a cruel, politically manipulative autocrat (Strachey, p. 86). Florence Nightingale is not at all the passive “Lady with the Lamp;” she is a driven professional whom, the author claims, pushed Sidney Herbert into an early grave (Strachey, pp. 181-2). Thomas Arnold, historically portrayed as a reformer of boys’ education, is shown to be responsible for a litany of educational missteps, not the least of which was to forestall science instruction (Strachey, p. 213). General Gordon was both a military hero and a disobedient soldier whose rashness caused his own death (Strachey, p. 283). All of this is said more softly and with a greater mass of verbiage than I have space to allow. Strachey does not pointedly hammer at the idols. He cautiously taps, relentlessly taps, until the statue has a crack and the imperfection is annoyingly obvious to those who prefer their icons flawless.

One may argue, as some did, that his characterizations are unfair and his citations sparse. But in the present, one does not read Eminent Victorians for its historical accuracy. Some of the information may be interesting, and some of it may even be true. But more important to the modern reader are an illustration of what early 20^th Century English readers appreciated and an admiration of some fine, subtle, sardonic writing.

Strachey, Lytton. Eminent Victorians. New York: Random House, 1962.

For review of a book on the British Empire during this time period, see:
http://greatnonfictionbooks.blogspot.com/2014/03/empire-by-niall-ferguson.html

For a politically progressive history of London, see:
http://greatnonfictionbooks.blogspot.com/2013/02/a-peoples-history-of-london-by-german.html

The Devil’s Broker by Frances Stonor Saunders

Frances Stonor Saunders has written a book that reads as smoothly and excitingly as fiction, but informs as skillfully as the best histories. This is a rare and difficult feat. It helps that her subject is John Hawkwood, an adventurous, villain, mercenary knight, in violent 14^th Century Italy. Still, she deserves credit: She wouldn’t have been the first historian to take a dramatic topic and wring all the moisture out of it, producing desiccated rags of paper.

Saunders presents an Italy riven by religious power, political corruption, superstition, mercenary violence, plague, famine and war. Brutal stuff. Between pages 10 and 20 is a frail, easily forgotten wave in the direction of the notion that this century wasn’t entirely savage. Repeatedly using Barbara Tuchman’s famous phrase “the calamitous century,” juxtaposed with cheery images of Chaucer and joyful peasants, Saunders takes an opportunity to distance herself from the more famous scholar of the 14^th Century against whom she will undoubtedly be compared.

But after this obligatory nod to balanced presentation, our historian dives back into her subject. Enter John Hawkwood, a minor noble’s son from Essex, recruited for adventure and profit in France, who rises to the leadership of the immense and famous White Company. While this mercenary provides the compass point around which the story revolves, he is merely a point in a wider circle of the environment described. Hawkwood’s progress from France to Italy, then up and down that peninsula, allows Saunders a context in which to depict historical development.

The primary theme that gets re-echoed throughout the book is that Hawkwood was a cold, greedy mobster; but he was no different from those of higher rank. Hawkwood’s services, largely composed of protection and pillage, were hired by two popes, one king, a couple of republics and countless respectable wealthy landowners. There are no heroes in this story. Our cast ranges from the morally questionable to the pathologically destructive.

Even those individuals depicted who do not have military or political power, are contaminated. Saint Catherine of Siena is anything but a saint. “Catherine’s joy at being splashed in the blood of a decapitated man—an experience she sought to prolong by not washing—suggests that she was now suffering from a full-blown neurosis” (Stonor, p. 197). Petrarch, though talented, is criticized as “an ornament of the Visconti court” which was known for its rapaciousness (Stonor, p. 136). The only player to escape the tainted brush is Chaucer, who is truly Saunders' touchstone in the book. He represents an incorruptible optimism that will not be beaten by the catastrophes which surround him.

Within such a story, it is difficult for an author to avoid the sensational. Stonor occasionally indulges in melodrama: “Thickset men who relished a noisy brawl in a tavern, a tussle over a whore, stole through the frozen nightscape with the lightness of ghosts” (Stonor, p. 21). But most of the time, the author is able to remain on point and continually informative. Given the subject, one should be surprised that she does not indulge more often.

The Devil’s Broker is a gift to historical writing. It is a template for scholars concerning how to compose engagingly and informatively. The readers who choose to embark upon this gallop through 14^th Century Italy will find themselves richly rewarded. The only regret will be the brevity of the journey as the read is a fast one.

Saunders, Frances Stonor. The Devil’s Broker. New York: HarperCollins Publishers, Inc., 2004.

For review of another book on this time period, see:
http://greatnonfictionbooks.blogspot.com/2013/10/a-distant-mirror-calamitous-14th.html

The European Revolutions, 1848 – 1851 by Jonathan Sperber.

The European Revolutions, 1848 – 1851, was designed as a textbook for early undergraduate and (optimistically) advanced high school students. As such, it does not contain intensely complex theory regarding the events. It is a basic depiction of the occurrences and major players of the period.  Some will find this approach refreshingly straightforward; a delineation of what happened without the haze of a historian’s pet theories and self-congratulatory mental gymnastics. Others will find the work unchallenging.

This is not to say that the portrayal is all action and no thought, like so many books on military battles. Sperber spends the first half of his book discussing the pre-revolutionary environment and the causes leading to the struggles of 1848. Those already familiar with living and working conditions in Early- to Mid-19^th Century Europe, who are reading primarily to inform themselves about the revolutionary years, will find this section tedious with no new information; they can skip directly to Chapter Three, “The Outbreak of Revolution.” These following chapters illustrate the rise of mass movements with particular attention to the varieties and structures of rebellious organizations.

Just about every reader of this review has grown-up within a representative form of democracy. Even those inured to the vicissitudes of history can find themselves discouraged by a story of flowering republics crushed under the military boot of autocratic kings. It was a dramatic burst of freedom and equally quick reversal. But Sperber does an excellent job of coddling the reader by discussing at length the groundwork laid by this continent-wide revolt. Post-1848 monarchs, while not required to draft a constitution, were seen as backward and faced importunate nagging from below if they did not. Press censorship was no longer a given strategy of conservative regimes. The process of organizing an opposition had been inculcated. Most importantly, people became acquainted with and accustomed to democratic notions. If seen as the first steps in a learning process that culminated, through persistent dedication, in our current period of widespread republican government, the bitter pill of this period will be swallowed in a spirit of more philosophical and sanguine remove.

I cannot say that The European Revolutions, 1848 – 1851 will be the most exhilarating read you’ve ever had (unless the period and events alone excite you), but it will be appropriately informative and clear.

Sperber, Jonathan. The European Revolutions, 1848 – 1851. Cambridge: The Cambridge University Press, 2003.

For review of a book on prior causes & events resulting in the European Revolutions, see:
http://greatnonfictionbooks.blogspot.com/2014/07/the-age-of-revolution-1789-to-1848-by.html

The Rothschilds, Banking and Amorality. Reflections Inspired by Niall Ferguson’s "The House of Rothschild".

Reading Ferguson’s book, depicting the seemingly callous actions of the Rothschild banking establishment, has caused me to dally upon questions of morality. There are a couple of ways to approach moral questions. One is from the observer’s own narrow, personal traditions or perspective: The Rothschilds were (“evil,” “wrong,” “immoral,” whatever one’s favorite designation) because they violated the dictates of the observer’s moral code.  Another is from the perspective of the person performing the action in question: An immoral person knows the difference between helpful or harmful acts and chooses the harmful one. An amoral person simply has no moral compass in a situation and performs the actions that serve his or her ends. The first approach is designed to confirm one’s own moral stance. The second approach can lead to insight concerning the actions of another. So it is the second approach I will be employing. I realize that the question of whether the Rothschild business practices were immoral or amoral is a tiny bit of philosophical hair-splitting. The distinction is only useful as a way of understanding that banking house.

                                             

To the House of Rothschild, whatever made money for the company was acceptable. Whether they were providing a loan to the British government that helped abolish slavery in the empire (Ferguson, p. 230), or providing a loan requested by the Russian Empire to suppress Polish independence (Ferguson, p.246), the sole purpose was to make money. That the actions were helpful or harmful to humane ends (or “good” or “evil” for the more Judeo-Christian reader) did not enter into the equation. By this definition, Rothschild business practices were amoral.

But using this definition, almost all banks and large corporations are amoral. There’s no reason to single-out the House of Rothschild specifically, unless one has a personal motivation to vilify their bank. The Boeing Corporation doesn’t care if it sells jets to fly passengers or jets to bomb villages; it’s the selling that counts. Banks will loan money to newly liberated countries and to armies which kill the civilians of those countries. The only question is can the borrower repay the loan. The purpose of a capitalist endeavor is to make money. The companies who add moral considerations to their actions are so few as to be enigmatic, and most of them fail in the international capitalist marketplace.

Most of us, who are not involved in these business decisions, profit from them.  If you have a 401K, or any retirement plan invested in stocks, bonds and mutual funds, the success or failure of your retirement plan is based upon the actions of these amoral agents. It is unlikely that one would be willing to invest in a company where the primary motivation was not the desire to make money. Of course, there are so-called “socially responsible” investments. They comprise a tiny piece of the international market and are largely focused on ineffectual, relatively innocuous moral concerns, like recycling and “Green Building.” In that way, I suppose most modern companies and most modern people are as amoral as the House of Rothschild.

Ferguson, Niall. The House of Rothschild. Volume One. New York: Penguin Putnam, Inc., 1998.

For a book review of Ferguson's The House of Rothschild, see:
http://greatnonfictionbooks.blogspot.com/2014/09/the-house-of-rothschild-by-niall.html

The Age of Revolution 1789 to 1848 by Eric Hobsbawm.

Eric Hobsbawm is that rare combination of innovative thinker and immensely well-informed historian, whose writing enriches one’s understanding beyond the mundane communication of facts. He is the individual who coined the term “dual revolution” to describe that period in Europe between 1789 and 1848, when the Industrial Revolution and the French Revolution combined to create dramatic social change.

To manage a discussion of two distinct and pervasive revolutions and their wide-ranging influences is a complicated task. Professor Hobsbawm accomplishes this labor by first narrowing the foci of each revolution to its starting point. After some initial words introducing the world of 1780, he discusses the inception of the Industrial in England, then the French Revolution in greater Paris. As the reverberations of these historical earthquakes emanate from their individual epicenters, Hobsbawm follows the cracking landscape to include the affected international areas.

It is a pleasure to read a history by a writer who has so thorough an understanding of his period. Hobsbawm examines his time frame from a wide variety of societal and cultural angles. Particularly rare are his book’s later chapters which look at the impact of the dual revolution upon fields as varied as art, religion and science. These digressions, from the pure politics and economics that mark most tomes about this period, are refreshing and insightful.

Few theories of history mesh in perfect comfort with the evidence. Our conceptions may be useful short-cuts to understanding an era, but life has a way of growing and acting beyond the boundaries we place for it. Hobsbawm’s theories are no exception. He has a difficult time inserting the USA into his equations. The historian’s claim that Andrew Jackson’s populist presidential victory was “part of” Europe’s “second wave of revolution [which] occurred in 1829-34” (Hobsbawm, p. 138) has only tenuous evidence to support it. His efforts to downplay the influence that the North American revolution had on Latin American liberation only serve to draw attention to the northern example (Hobsbawm, p. 76). Some South American leaders (e.g. Simon Bolivar) developed their revolutionary creed in Paris. Others were inspired by the thirteen colonies’ success; which provided a more accurate template for Latin colonial independence than did the French rebellion against monarchy. But these discrepancies do not detract from the upheaval caused by the dual revolution in Europe.

Some will refrain from reading this historian’s works because he has been called a “Marxist Historian.” What the reader needs to recognize is that a Marxist Historian is an entirely different organism from a Marxist Activist. A Marxist Activist seeks to overthrow the capitalist system and institute a collective ownership of property. A Marxist Historian is an individual who has a class-based analysis of history and discusses the evolution of relationships within and between classes over time. While there are occasional revolutionaries among them, Marxist Historians do not necessarily think that a communist system is the answer. Rarely do they support Soviet- or Chinese-style communism unless they have been employed by one of those states. The student of history may learn about different classes and their development without accepting collectivist propaganda.

One bewildering characteristic of this book is that Hobsbawm discusses developments leading to the outbreak of revolt in 1848, but he does not spend any time discussing the events of that continent-wide explosion. The Age of Revolution ends with “in 1848, the explosion burst” (Hobsbawm, p. 362). The historian’s next book in the series is entitled The Age of Capitalism. Throughout The Age of Revolution, there are references to 1848’s failure, but no details. I cannot begin to conjecture the reasons for this omission. It is as if one has created a play and left-out the final act.

Despite this missing piece, Hobsbawm presents a chronology of development from 1789 to 1848 that is unparalleled in depth and scope. It would be a shame to miss it. Two options that a reader has regarding the missing finale are 1) find another book and hope that it’s as insightful, or 2) supplement The Age of Revolution with an additional book. I have a time-saving suggestion for readers who really want to read Hobsbawm: I have now embarked upon Jonathan Sperber’s The European Revolutions, 1848-1851 (review to follow). It is a basic depiction of the events and players of those years without innovative analysis. If you have already read Hobsbawm, you can skip the first 104 pages (which will contain nothing new to you) and start with chapter three “The Outbreak of Revolution.” With just 155 pages to go, this will adequately illustrate the final act.

Hobsbawm, Eric J. The Age of Revolution 1789 to 1848. New York: The New American Library, Inc., 1962.

For that review of Sperber's The European Revolutions 1848-1851, see:
http://greatnonfictionbooks.blogspot.com/2014/08/the-european-revolutions-1848-1851-by.html

A History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom by Andrew Dickson White.

A History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom is both a part of history and a book about history. In 1865, Andrew Dickson White was the founding president of Cornell University.  He conceived it as an institution that “should exclude no sex or color” and “should afford an asylum for science” (White, p. 13). Almost immediately, White and Cornell were attacked by administrators of sectarian colleges, who described the new university as irreligious and immoral. White responded with a series of lectures defending his university. These lectures grew into written thoughts which, over a period of thirty years, (interrupted by duties at Cornell and ambassadorships to Germany and Russia), became the work we have today. It was published in 1896.

White’s thesis was that “theology” was the villain in the struggle against science; not “religion.” In his chapter on astronomy, White states that misinformation and attempts to hamper science concerning heliocentric theory were “not the fault of religion; it was the fault of that short-sighted linking of theological dogmas to scriptural texts which, in utter defiance of the words and works of the Blessed Founder of Christianity, narrow-minded, loud-voiced men are ever prone to substitute for religion” (White, p. 153). While this attempt to divide theology and religion is the author’s tactic throughout the book, it is unclear if White truly believes what he is saying, or if he is strategically attempting to drive a wedge between religious leaders and the believing flock.

Regardless of his motivations, White’s reasoning is unsound even to an atheist like myself: Theology is the study of religion. Religion, in the Judeo-Christian sense, is a revelation by God to his followers. The chronicle of that revelation is the Bible. Any reader of the Bible can easily identify the verses that support the notion that the Sun travels around the Earth: 1 Chronicles 16:30, Psalms 93:1, Psalms 104:5 and Ecclesiastes 1:5, all clearly state this belief. It is not a matter of theological interpretation by church leaders, or the over-intellectualizing of medieval scholars; it is an aspect of revealed religious belief. But whether these wedge ideas were honest opinions of White’s, or just propaganda, is immaterial to the result. His generation of voices weakened the religious claim upon explanation of the physical world.

The structure of the book is simple. Each chapter is devoted to a scientific issue: Cosmology, Evolution, Geology and Archaeology, to name a few. Each example shows a consistent pattern by presenting Christian beliefs (identified by White as “theology”), presenting the scientific challenge, then showing the reaction of religious leaders. The response of religious leaders begins with threats, brutality and censorship, moves on to compromise and ends with the inevitable surrender of ground to science. This element of the book is methodical and well-documented, presenting a chronology of religious misunderstanding and the answers of science. With this evidence, White is most convincing.

The author concludes his tome with an attempt to drive the wedge deeper between leader and flock. He contends that “science in general has acted powerfully to dissolve away the theories and dogmas of the older theologic interpretation,” helping to purify the sacred texts of a confusing overlay (White, p. 500). This view places science on the side of religion and its followers, against interpreters of the Bible. What exceptionally bold misrepresentation: stating that science has done more for scripture than have Christian scholars and leaders. But it’s propaganda and one has to admire his temerity. More plausible are his chronologies, of science’s advance and religion’s retreat, concerning explanations of the physical world. In the end, it was writing like this which deftly slid between the grip of religion on the throat of science and dislodged it. We breathe more freely today, with unencumbered scientific study and fewer clerics administering universities, thanks to people like Andrew Dickson White.

White, Andrew Dickson. A History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom. New York: The Free Press, 1965.

For review of a good general history of Western Science, see:
http://greatnonfictionbooks.blogspot.com/2013/05/the-scientists-by-john-gribbin.html