NetGalley ARC | The Women of Rothschild: The Untold Story of the World's Most Famous Dynasty

I received a free digital ARC from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Rating | ⭐⭐⭐

I'm not quite sure why I did not click with this book as much as I thought I would. I love reading about family dynasties, especially rich ones with secrets and strong women.

There is no question that Natalie Livingstone has done her research. She has traced the movements of generations, from Europe to the US and back. To and from ghettos, castles, concentration camps, and Palestine. Three hundred years' worth of women who were kept out of the family business, so had to forge their own paths ot leave their marks on the world. We meet a wide varity of women, who all took distinct paths - some played the part perfectly of wealthy society hostesses, others advocated for societal changes. Some fit the mold expected of them, and some took that mold and smashed it.

There are several branches of the Rothschild family and for as many women as there are to discuss, this meant a lot of information about the men in the family had to be thrown in too. I feel like this was especially true in the earlier generations, considering how little original source information there must have been. Yet she did well with what information she had, and fleshed the women of those earliest generations out as well as she could.

Livingstone also stated at various times that with the documents she had, mainly diaries and letters, that pages were missing, had been burned, or entire passages blotted out. What secrets those missing papers held, we'll never know. Naturally more information becomes available as time marches forward, and there's much great information about the later generations of women.

Even so, the men of Rothschild still played a large role in the text at times, and it was frustrating but I suppose inevitable.

One of the biggest challenge of the text though, was keeping everyone straight. I had a digital copy, so the family tree wasn't very helpful. This wouldn't be an issue for a physical copy, but there were times I gave up reading for a couple days because I was annoyed with keeping track of everyone named Mayer and Charlotte.

In the end, I am glad I read the book. This is a family I knew next to nothing about, and getting a glimpse at least was interesting.

Recommended.