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

PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio.

©2022 Joseph Sassoon (P)2022 Random House Audio

Critic reviews

2023, National Jewish Book Award: Short-listed

“The extraordinary, compelling story of the rise and fall of the Sassoon family. It begins like a detective novel, and moves from the Ottoman Archives in Istanbul to private, official and business archives in Delhi, Hong Kong and Jerusalem. [The Sassoons] recounts the history of 19th- and 20th-century commerce, in opium, pearls and cotton mills, from Baghdad and Bombay to London and Shanghai. The Sassoons made their fortunes in the British Empire, and their destiny is also a story of having become too English, amidst the end of empire.” (Emma Rothschild)

“The Sassoons were the ultimate imperial dynasty, Mesopotamian Jews who made their money trading opium between British India and Qing China. Like Amschel Rothschild, David Sassoon deployed his sons to create a multinational family firm. Like the Romans, the Sassoons split their empire into Western and Eastern halves. And like Thomas Mann’s Buddenbrooks, the Sassoon family depleted their entrepreneurial spirit in pursuit of social acceptance, some part of which was always withheld. This is a deeply researched, wonderfully rich account of a family that, perhaps more than any other, personified British imperialism in all its ambivalence.” (Niall Ferguson)

A telling history

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

Great book

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

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

Individual still make a difference

It is interesting how the male and female members of this family helped make this business great. I wonder how much longer the United States will be an innovative country.

Interesting Story but lacked for depth

I have listened to many histories of families (Vanderbilt, Astor, Cartier, Morgan, etc) and this one was not my favorite. It seems to drag a bit. It was not terrible, and I am glad I listened as it was an interesting family, but I would like to have heard more about family life rather than a book mostly about business. However, that may have been the author's intent, so I cannot judge too harshly.

An Impressive Family

I didn’t know much about the Sassoon family, and now I do. From their beginnings in Baghdad to their formation of an export business in Mumbai to their expansion to Shanghai, London and the world, the family became one of the richest and most prominent in the British Empire. This book traces their rise and fall in a straightforward, businesslike manner.

Regrettably, few of the family members are colorful. There are exceptions, like Farha, a woman who takes over the company and succeeds despite her cousins’ resentments. There's Siegfried, the sad World War I poet, and Sir Victor, the playboy who compulsively photographs the world’s most beautiful women. But most of the Sassoons are colorless businessmen.

The book might have focused more on the ethical dilemmas of the opium trade, the initial source of much of the family’s wealth. It’s hard not to draw parallels between the riches earned by the Sassoons from opium sales and the wealth of the modern dynasties who pushed opiate painkillers (although the Sassoons were merely trading, not promoting, opium). It’s interesting how these tycoons rationalize the harm done by their products, in part by donating large parts of their fortunes to charitable projects.

Overall, I enjoyed the book. It's best for those with an interest in global commerce.

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.

A book that captures you till the end

The story of the Sassoon family is a very interesting to read. It shows how generations build, and the next generations squander. Professor Sassoon does a great job of narrating this very intriguing story. Bravo