This is a very well researched book on the Sassoons starting in 18th-century Iraq. It delves into how the various branches of the family made their money and the fights among them. It also goes into their relationships with the leaders in the countries where they lived and did business including Iraq, India, China and Great Britain.
No detail is omitted.
The book gave me a great amount of detail prior to attending the exhibit at The Jewish Museum.
The audible edition is also well done.

Most people have heard of Vidal Sassoon of hair care fame but they probably don't know the fascinating history of the Sassoon family which comes to life in the new book The Sassoons.

This non fiction work reads like a piece of literary fiction about a a Jewish family originally from Bagdad. The Sassoons created a huge marketing system that stretched across the world and brought them great wealth.

The story begins with the family mostly trading opium and cotton during the 1800's. The family is really at the center of world trade and its fascinating to learn how they did business all over the world before internet and airplanes created the instant access we have today.

I loved this story because it follows a fascinating close knit Jewish family that changes and morphs as time marches on. This book is an excellent fascinating history lesson and I highly recommend and thank netgalley and the publisher for the ARC in exchange for my review.

Joseph Sassoon's THE SASSOONS is a meticulously researched look at a family that wielded great power--almost invisibly. Filled with fascinating tidbits and peopled by an extraordinary assemblage of individuals, this is a welcome addition to the history shelves of important families.

Thanks to Knopf and to Netgalley for the opportunity for an early read.

The Sassoons : The Great Global Merchants and the Making of an Empire by Joseph Sassoon
I found this an interesting but difficult book to follow. I don’t believe this is completely the fault of the author. The Sassoon family was large with many children ( up to 15 I believe) with little creativity in names so it became difficult to remember which “David” was witch. This is a story of a Baghdadi Jewish family that sought to make money and first moved to India. There first major business opportunity was opium which makes them not a family to be loved in my mind. They also move into cotton and then the manufacture of fabrics from the cotton with mills in India. What was an interesting part of the book was the price of cotton fluctuated due to the Civil War in America. Most of their money was made as merchant traders and as a result this meant being very astute or lucking in forecast currency swings as well as over or under supply of say opium. An interesting point made by the author was during the 1860’s the Sassoons were a global business but communication links were still very slow. Thus, getting correct and trusted information as quickly as possible was a benefit to profit and the Sassoons large family scattered all over the Middle East, India and China was a significant advantage. However just as Thomas Piketty has mentioned in his books the 3rd generation in wealth tends to lose it. This is certainly the case here as many of the branches of the family chose to buy property in the UK attempt to become “English” and lived off the profits without assisting in the growth of the company. Combine this with opium being banned, WW II and the loss of their property in Shanghai and the independence of India and the company slowly died. Today there are still Sassoons as is the author but no company and most of the wealth is gone. I am glad I read the book but I must let you know this is not a family to love in part of their business and in part to so many characters over nearly 200 years.

I read some passing references to the Sassoons while reading about the opium business in China and wanted to read more about this business family that hardly anyone seems to have heard about.

Luckily, this book came along and I was able to grab an ARC. The book goes into the rise and fall of this prominent family and provides the right amount of history (and less gossip) for anyone interested in the topic.

A fascinating look at the Sassoon dynasty from their beginnings in Baghdad to their ascension to the world stage.So well researched so many details facts a really well written look at their economic lives their world.#netgalley TheSassoons

A fascinating account of a successful Jewish family. I was very interested to hear of their lives in countries that I've never had a chance to visit. This book is an important addition to Jewish history and should be treasured for that. I suspect that it could have been even longer and more detailed, but I appreciate the research that went into this by the author, who had good reason to write this book!

Thank you to NetGalley for an advance copy of this book. It's an important one.

A detailed group biography of the fabled Sassoon family, from their roots in Baghdad to the higher echelons of British society, passing India, China and many other places en route, a family dynasty that spread across the globe gaining – and sometimes losing – untold wealth. An enormous amount of research has gone into the book, for which the author is to be applauded, but the detail about their business and trading activities and the amount of information about money matters makes for some tedious reading at times – unless you like that sort of thing. Personally I was more interested in the personalities and their personal lives so I did find myself skipping bits on occasion. Nevertheless, this is a wonderful book overall and brings to life a family I knew relatively little about.

The only Sassoon I have ever been aware of was the maker of hair products, so I thought this would make a very interesting book about the family who seems to have made quite a big splash in the business world in the past. I was rather disappointed then that this was less a biography of a family and more a record of their economic activities.

I still marvelled at how business was carried out in an Internet-less and airplane-less world, and was particularly amazed and appalled at how easy it was to sell opium.

Not quite for me but those interested in the history of world trade, particularly of a Jewish family, would probably find it of value.

3 and a half stars from me.

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.