The Warburgs: The Twentieth-Century Odyssey of a Remarkable Jewish Family by Ron Chernow
From the Pulitzer Prize–winning bestselling author of Alexander Hamilton, the inspiration for the hit Broadway musical, comes this definitive biography of the Warburgs, one of the great German-Jewish banking families of the twentieth century.
Bankers, philanthropists, scholars, socialites, artists, and politicians, the Warburgs stood at the pinnacle of German (and, later, of German-American) Jewry. They forged economic dynasties, built mansions and estates, assembled libraries, endowed charities, and advised a German kaiser and two American presidents. But their very success made the Warburgs lightning rods for anti-Semitism, and their sense of patriotism became increasingly dangerous in a Germany that had declared Jews the enemy.
Ron Chernow's hugely fascinating history is a group portrait of a clan whose members were renowned for their brilliance, culture, and personal energy yet tragically vulnerable to the dark and irrational currents of the twentieth century.