Reads like an epic novel ... In this impressively researched and beautifully written book, Ms. Livingstone has done a remarkable job of illuminating the women behind the Rothschild name.
Entrancing ... Livingstone half-heartedly costumes her heroines as contemporary figures whose vision of 'gender and sexuality' was innocent of all 'binary' simplemindedness, but her gossip-feast of a book is really about the survival, in the ostensibly rational world of finance, of enchantments one would have thought had gone the way of sorcery and alchemy.
A commendable if curiously titled book on a splendid subject. (Why not simply The Rothschild Women?) ... Well-researched ... These high-minded 19th-century ladies fail to capture a lively historian’s imagination. For that spark, readers must wait for Miriam. Did Livingstone consider writing a life of the woman who outshines all the rest in her book? It’s hard not to suspect as much ... The Rothschilds’ tradition of guarding their privacy makes life difficult for a biographer ... Evidently much still remains to be told about this remarkable family.
Within a couple of chapters, I was hooked ... Having read so many accounts of the history, it was revelatory to see it from this unexpected angle ... I must admit that I often found details of these women’s domestic lives rather tedious, but Livingstone brings their travails to life with sensitive intimacy ... Time and again I was impressed by the subtlety with which Livingstone wove her subject into the wider fabric of the past, gesturing towards broad scholarly vistas. That ability is the key to writing intelligently for the general reader ... Specialists may wish that the book dealt more effectively with twentieth-century antisemitism. They may also identify the odd error of detail; it annoyed me to see the Montefiores described as better marital prospects than Nathan Rothschild in 1805, long before they made their fortune. Yet specialists will also discover a great deal they ought to have known ... Brilliantly conceived and beautifully written, The Women of Rothschild is more than just a glossy book about rich people. It represents a significant contribution to our understanding of the Jewish past.
Livingstone tells this story in a tone of well-oiled, celebratory enthusiasm ... A great deal is crammed into this highly populated narrative, leaving the reader sometimes reeling back to the byzantine family tree for help.
Comprehensive and colorful ... Livingstone expertly mines diaries, memoirs, and letters for vivid anecdotes ... This sparkling history is full of riches.
