The Global Merchants: The Enterprise and Extravagance of the Sassoon Dynasty

The Sassoons were a nineteenth-century business dynasty like the Rothschilds, based in colonial Bombay. This book explores their success, built on a network of agents and politicians, bridging East and West culturally and commercially. It features Flora, Siegfried, and Victor, and delves into their lives and the era's politics and power. The Sassoons were agents, advocates, and casualties of globalization, and their story provides a fresh perspective on its evolution.

Format: Paperback / softback
Length: 448 pages
Publication date: 29 February 2024
Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd

The Sassoons, a prominent commercial family of the nineteenth century, rivaled the Rothschilds in their influence and success. This captivating book delves into the secrets behind their remarkable journey, revealing how a group of Jewish exiles from Ottoman Baghdad transformed themselves into a mercantile powerhouse in colonial Bombay. Through their vast network of agents, informants, and politicians, they bridged the East and West, not only in trade but also culturally. The Sassoons controlled a vast array of commodities, including silver, gold, silk, spices, opium, cotton, wool, and wheat, exerting their influence on global commerce.

Joseph Sassoon, drawing from the extensive family archives, brings to life a series of remarkable characters, showcasing the diverse talents and achievements of a single generation. Flora, the first woman to lead a major global business, Siegfried, the poet, and Victor, the tycoon who attracted Hollywood's silent era stars to his Shanghai skyscraper, are just a few of the captivating figures portrayed. The reader is transported into a world of politics, power, innovation, intrigue, high society, and empire as these ambitious individuals built their lives in London, Bombay, and beyond.

The Global Merchants offers a unique perspective on the Sassoons and their era, spanning from the Opium Wars and the opening of China to the American Civil War, the establishment of the British Raj, and India's independence. It sheds light on the family's role as agents, advocates, and drivers of globalization, highlighting their profound impact on the world's economic and cultural landscape. This book is not only an intimate portrait of a single family but also a panoramic history of the hundred and thirty years of their prominence, providing a fresh understanding of the forces that shaped their age and continue to shape our present.

Weight: 348g
Dimension: 128 x 197 x 29 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9780241388655