The Jewish makers of modern finance have not gone unchronicled

 Tales of the super-rich never cease to fascinate. Stephen Birmingham’s “Our Crowd: The Great Jewish Families of New York” (1967) spent dozens of weeks on the bestseller list. “The Lehman Trilogy” has been staged in 24 languages. It’s not just the rags-to-riches fable that keeps the audience engrossed. There is a much deeper curiosity in those who made mountains of money and somehow managed to keep it.

While the Rothschilds and Lehmans were creating markets in London, Paris and New York, a family of Baghdad Jews were extending a financial network from India and China to London and beyond. 

David Sassoon treated his eight sons and six daughters equally, scrutinizing them for entrepreneurial talent. His elder sons Abdullah and Elias were sent abroad, Abdullah to Calcutta and London, Elias to Hong Kong and Shanghai. The Sassoons became British citizens. 

The British held a monopoly on selling opium to China. Cotton was small beginnings. The Sassoon fortune would be made in the opium trade.

WSJ 21 October 2022 

https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-sassoons-book-review-hazards-of-fortune-11666360783