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blue & gilt decorative full cloth hardcover 8vo. (octavo). dustwrapper in protective plastic book jacket cover. fine cond. binding square & tight. covers clean. tiny bit of fading to top edge of cover cloth. tiny ding, bottom of rear cover. edges clean. tiny faint spot front flyleaf, otherwise contents free of markings. dustwrapper in vg cond. bit of wrinkling, missing 1" piece spine bottom, front flap torn in the crease, not price clipped. nice clean copy. no library markings, store stamps, stickers, bookplates, no names, inking, underlining, remainder markings etc~. first edition so stated. first printing (NAP). glossy b&w photo frontis. decorative title pg. xiii+304p. genealogical tree. 25 glossy b&w photo illustrations. bilbliography. index. world history. british empire. ottoman empire. history of china. biography. opium wars. ~ Few dynasties have experienced more dramatic changes of fortune than the Sassoons, long known as 'the Rothschilds of the East'. After centuries as Bankers to successive Ottoman rulers and leading citizens in Baghdad, the year 1829 saw the clan suddenly faced with extinction~and the young David Sassoon forced to flee his ancestral home by night under the threat of a death sentence. In a single generation against the turbulent background of the Opium Wars, he founded a spectacular trading empire based on Bombay with branches straddling Europe and the Far East. In the words of a contemporary: 'Silver and gold, silks, gums and spices, opium and cotton, wool and wheat~whatever moved over land and sea felt the hand and bore the mark of Sassoon & Co.' A vast fortune was accumulated~but one that left a legacy of deep~rooted inter~family differences. Even more remarkable than its trading coups was the clan's dazzling social progress. The first Sassoon to wear Western dress arrived in England in 1858. Within a few years the family boasted two baronetcies and was sending its sons to Eton and Oxford. The Shah of Persia and, later, King Edward VII Were to be guests in the Sassoon homes and shooting lodges. A Sassoon woman owned and simultaneously edited The Sunday Times and The Observer. To her, Esterhazy confessed his guilt over Dreyfus. Sir Philip Sassoon, millionaire host, politician and aesthete, was private secretary to Field~Marshall Haig and Lloyd George, and friend of the Duke of Windsor, Chaplin and Lawrence of Arabia. His cousin, Siegfried, is the famous war poet. Their kinsman, Sir Victor, survived a crippling air crash to become a merchant prince and international sportsman. His racing triumphs included four Epsom Derby wins, and his financial deals involved millions, from the cotton boom of wartime India to Mao's takeover of his huge enterprises in Shanghai. The Sassoons is remarkable for its quick~changing scenes and wealth of anecdote. The author has had access to private papers and much business correspondence and has created a vivid picture of the volatile Sassoons, both as a ruling dynasty and as a family. N° de ref. del artículo 12012103
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