로스차일드 가와 혈연관계이자 아시아의 마약왕이었던 사순 가문의 성공과 몰락이 주는 교훈: 헝그리 정신(개척 정신)의 중요성

 

https://www.timesofisrael.com/the-rise-and-fall-of-the-opium-fueled-sassoon-dynasty-the-rothschilds-of-the-east/

Albert was not alone in enjoying warm relations with the aristocracy and royalty, both in the UK and elsewhere in Europe. In 1873, his half-brother, Arthur, married Eugenie Louise Perugia, of an old Italian Jewish family. “Mrs. Arthur,” as she was universally known, became a fixture on the London social scene, and regularly featured in Queen Victoria’s diaries. The Sassoons soon also became related to the Rothschilds by marriage with Albert’s son, Edward, marrying Aline, the daughter of Baron Gustave de Rothschild of Paris, in 1887. Edward was later elected to parliament to represent the Kent constituency of Hythe, which has previously returned Meyer de Rothschild as its MP.

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It was Albert’s brothers, Reuben and Arthur, who were personally closest to the royal family. They shared with the Prince of Wales, Queen Victoria’s eldest son, a love of horse racing, shooting and hunting. Edward and his “Marlborough House set” of fashionable friends enjoyed the “gay parties” thrown by Arthur and his wife at their estate in the Scottish Highlands. Reuben became known as the Prince’s “unofficial bookie” and “administrator of funds for his past times.”


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But, as Sassoon writes, Albert’s death in 1896 marked “the beginning of the end” for the company. The storm clouds were already on the horizon. Despite the fact that, from the 1890s, profits from opium had begun to fall, the Sassoons failed to sufficiently diversify. Moreover, while they managed to fend off political and religious pressure in Britain to ban this “evil trade,” the writing was on the wall as the new century commenced. In 1907, for instance, Britain agreed with India and China that, within a decade, opium exports and cultivation would be barred. Six years later, Britain further tightened the screw. Both Sassoon companies, however, continued trading the drug, attempting to squeeze every last penny from the now-discredited trade.

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 The exceedingly wealthy Philip — who was close to the prime minister, David Lloyd George, and would eventually serve in government for over a decade as aviation minister — was more interested in politics and the arts, to which he was a generous benefactor.

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Ironically, the schismatic E.D. Sassoon & Co put up much more of a fight under the leadership of its founder’s grandson, Victor, who became chairman of the company in 1924 upon the death of his father. Fiercely anti-communist and unsympathetic to Indian nationalism, Victor came to see China as a better bet for his commercial interests and transferred much of his wealth — an estimated $25 million (or $500 million in today’s money) — to Shanghai in the late 1920s. He plunged vast amounts into lucrative property investments, including constructing the city’s first 11-story building, Cathay House. By the mid-1930s, Victor was hailed by Fortune magazine as “Shanghai’s No. 1 realtor” with his properties estimated to be worth between $1.2-$1.5 billion in today’s money.

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But the Japanese invasion of China, which reached Shanghai in 1937, and the Communist takeover just over a decade later, knocked the financial stuffing out of the company. Having badly gambled on China over India, Victor made a further major error of judgment by then pulling out of Hong Kong — a good long-term bet — after the war. Instead, the luxury-loving Victor opted to live out his remaining years in the tax haven of the Bahamas, pursuing his passion for horse racing, travel and amateur photography. Without the involvement of a Sassoon, his company soldiered on for another decade until, with only diminishing profits to its name, it was sold to a merchant bank in the early 1970s. For all his accomplishments in Shanghai, Victor had ultimately proved, in the words of one of his father’s business associates, “casual about the empire he inherited.”

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In what way does this new book, add to or differ from the much-praised 1968 work, The Sassoons, by Stanley (Samuel) Jackson (published by Heinemann)?

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The Sassoons, by Stanley (Samuel) Jackson

“The Sassoons: The Great Global Merchants and the Making of an Empire.” (A Hebrew edition will follow in June.)