The Sassoons

The Great Global Merchants and the Making of an Empire

By: Joseph Sassoon

Narrated by: James Lurie

A spectacular generational saga of the making (and undoing) of a family dynasty: the riveting untold story of the gilded Jewish Bagdadi Sassoons, who built a vast empire through global finance and trade—cotton, opium, shipping, banking—that reached across three continents and ultimately changed the destinies of nations. With full access to rare family photographs and archives.

They were one of the richest families in the world for two hundred years, from the 19th century to the 20th, and were known as ‘the Rothschilds of the East.’

Mesopotamian in origin, and for more than forty years the chief treasurers to the pashas of Baghdad and Basra, they were forced to flee to Bushir on the Persian Gulf; David Sassoon and sons starting over with nothing, and beginning to trade in India in cotton and opium.

The Sassoons soon were building textile mills and factories, and setting up branches in shipping in China, and expanding beyond, to Japan, and further west, to Paris and London. They became members of British parliament; were knighted; and owned and edited Britain’s leading newspapers, including The Sunday Times and The Observer.

And in 1887, the exalted dynasty of Sassoon joined forces with the banking empire of Rothschild and were soon joined by marriage, fusing together two of the biggest Jewish commerce and banking families in the world.

Against the monumental canvas of two centuries of the Ottoman Empire and the changing face of the Far East, across Europe and Great Britain during the time of its farthest reach, Joseph Sassoon gives us a riveting generational saga of the making of this magnificent family dynasty.

*Includes a downloadable PDF of a full Sassoon family genealogical chart and photographs from the book

Fascinating History of a family

I love these kinds of stories where you see a family of nothing grow into something great. and then typically fall right back down. The global merchants back in the day were particularly amazing. THey were global powerhouses without reliable networks and communications. Forget the internet... they didn't even have phones!

Great book

This is a great book- a real page Turner!
Highly recommended- you well learn a lot.

A telling history

You learn so much about the complex functioning of world history through the story of one exceptional family.

Very good

Book is very good. I felt the beginning was a bit slow and it was difficult to keep track of the various family members as they were building the business. Once they started losing it it picked up significantly. Fewer family members, big personalities, very engaging

More variety

I very much liked the encyclopedic view of the author from the hard-working beginnings to the softness of squandering. It is a tail of caution. However, I would have liked to have understood more the art collections of Phillip, and then Sybille. Sybille was a patron of the artist, John Singer Sargent. The world today sees Art as an asset, whereas the art patronage or collecting in This story has only portrayed it as a means of dissipating the family fortune away from trade. It could be seen as diversification and the collections and connoisseurship that was built could be interpreted as a legacy. I was disappointed that it was left out and only seen as last ditch effort to sell to raise funds.