Anthony de Rothschild: Banker and Philanthropist tells the story of the man who influenced
modern history. De Rothschild was at the helm of international banking steering the system
from the chaos after the First World War into the modern world. In this evocative new book
historian David Kynaston tells the fascinating story of Anthony de Rothschild (1887-1961).
Through access to never previously consulted diaries and letters a three-dimensional picture
emerges of a complex and thoughtful man guiding the City's most famous merchant bank through
the turbulent years between the 1920s and 1950s. In politics he was open-minded and
constructive whilst in his philanthropy not least through his leading role in helping Jewish
refugees (especially children) to leave Nazi Germany for England he was thoughtful and
generous. Austere on the surface but warm beneath impatient equally of fools and idealogues
always searching for how he could contribute to make a better world - Anthony de Rothschild
deserves arguably more than almost anyone else in the twentieth-century City to be known
properly by later generations.
