The Women of Rothschild by Natalie Livingstone

Drawing on archives, memoirs, and published sources, focuses on the British branch of the family, examining eight generations of Rothschild women whose influence reached into politics, literature, social reform, Zionism, science, and the arts. “Never before have the lives of the family's women been explored in such intelligent, entertaining detail as in Natalie Livingstone's new must read.” – Town & Country “Deeply researched.This is a rich history to dip in and out of–each generation of the tangled family tree provides Livingstone with fascinating women of wealth and influence who found important ways to defy the expectations of their era.” - Vogue, “Best Books for Fall 2022” “Commendable well-researched.” – The New York Times “Reads like an epic novel.impressively researched and beautifully written.” – The Wall Street Journal 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.Ībsorbing and compulsive, The Women of Rothschild gives voice to the complicated, privileged, and gifted women whose vision and tenacity shaped history.

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.

They became influential hostesses and talented diplomats, choreographing electoral campaigns, advising prime ministers, advocating for social reform, and trading on the stock exchange. Excluded from the family bank, they forged their own distinct dynasty of daughters and nieces, mothers and aunts. 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.įrom 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.Īs Jews in a Christian society and women in a deeply patriarchal family, they were outsiders.

The Women of Rothschild by Natalie Livingstone