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A review by candacesiegle_greedyreader
The Sassoons: The Great Global Merchants and the Making of an Empire by Joseph Sassoon
4.0
The Sassoons
Today, Vidal Sassoon may be the only Sassoon people have heard about (some may know the poet Siegfried Sassoon) but in the 19th century they family was one of the wealthiest in the world. A family of astute and brilliant traders, they ended up with nothing after the takeover of the Communists in China.
James Sassoon tells the story of his family and how difficult it is to pass wealth from generation to generation. David Sassoon was a leader in the Baghdadi Jewish community, building a thriving business and serving as treasurer to pashas. But prejudice was building against Jews in Iraq and the Sassoons moved to Mumbai in the early 19th century. There, they established massive businesses in opium and textiles. David Sassoon was a brilliant businessman, earning the esteem of the British (even though he spoke little English) and becoming a civic-minded pillar of the business community.
He focused on China and Hong King, sending several of his sons to England for school. When he died things began to unravel as his sons began to squabble and the network of personal connections he had built frayed. By the 20th century his descendants were part of the British social world, more interested in playing polo than keeping a finger on the pulse of world trade.
Most of “The Sassoons” is pretty interesting, showing us how businesses worked in the Orthodox world of Iraq and India, how veering from that path brought disaster. James Sassoon’s writing style is spare and frank, and the book could have benefitted from more personal stories about the family, especially David. The feeling is that we don’t know much about these people even though they wrote a gazillion letters, every day, all the time, to everyone. These were written in a Baghdadi Jewish dialect which might be hard to decipher, but it’s hard to imagine there’s so little source material about such a prominent family.
Still, it’s a look at the rise and fall of a powerful family, plus the glimpse at the working of 19th century Indian and middle-eastern commerce.
Today, Vidal Sassoon may be the only Sassoon people have heard about (some may know the poet Siegfried Sassoon) but in the 19th century they family was one of the wealthiest in the world. A family of astute and brilliant traders, they ended up with nothing after the takeover of the Communists in China.
James Sassoon tells the story of his family and how difficult it is to pass wealth from generation to generation. David Sassoon was a leader in the Baghdadi Jewish community, building a thriving business and serving as treasurer to pashas. But prejudice was building against Jews in Iraq and the Sassoons moved to Mumbai in the early 19th century. There, they established massive businesses in opium and textiles. David Sassoon was a brilliant businessman, earning the esteem of the British (even though he spoke little English) and becoming a civic-minded pillar of the business community.
He focused on China and Hong King, sending several of his sons to England for school. When he died things began to unravel as his sons began to squabble and the network of personal connections he had built frayed. By the 20th century his descendants were part of the British social world, more interested in playing polo than keeping a finger on the pulse of world trade.
Most of “The Sassoons” is pretty interesting, showing us how businesses worked in the Orthodox world of Iraq and India, how veering from that path brought disaster. James Sassoon’s writing style is spare and frank, and the book could have benefitted from more personal stories about the family, especially David. The feeling is that we don’t know much about these people even though they wrote a gazillion letters, every day, all the time, to everyone. These were written in a Baghdadi Jewish dialect which might be hard to decipher, but it’s hard to imagine there’s so little source material about such a prominent family.
Still, it’s a look at the rise and fall of a powerful family, plus the glimpse at the working of 19th century Indian and middle-eastern commerce.