David Landes’ last book – The Wealth and Poverty of Nations –  displayed the magisterial talents of the mature historian drawing on the reading and experience of a lifetime.  In Dynasties, Landes adopts a narrower canvas – the achievement of great business families. But he brings to his new book many of the qualities which made Wealth and Poverty both a critical and popular success:  breadth of knowledge, An instinct for the telling anecdote and pithy quotation, and a fluent and easy style which borders on the colloquial.

       The title page talks of success and failure in family businesses.  But the case studies Landes uses do not describe the kinds of people nor the kinds of enterprises, that normally come to mind when we think of family business.  His subjects are the banking houses of Baring, Rothschild and Morgan:  the automobile businesses of the Fords, Agnellis, Peugeots and Toyodas:  the mining and mineral operations of the Rockefellers, Guggenheims, Schlumbergers and Wendels.  The great majority of enterprises around the world are, he emphasises, family firms:  but not family firms like these.

       Each of Landes’ accounts has a central character of extraordinary talent, ambition and commitment, who not only establishes a great business but exerts an influence on his family that reverberates through succeeding generations – men like John D Rockefeller and Meyer Rothschild. There are rarely more than one or two such individuals in a generation.  The initially exaggerated role attributed to heroic leaders in modern business comes from an attempt by successful bureaucrats, whose political skills have taken them to the top of a corporate ladder, to suggest that their own roles – and remuneration – are of equal significance.  But Henry Ford and JP Morgan were of a different stamp.

For each dynasty family control tends to erode as the market value and capital needs of the business expand.  Successive generations use the wealth created in the business to pursue politics, other commercial interests, to explore cultural pursuits, or simply enjoy the indolence of affluence.

       But Landes shows that most powerful and enduring dynasties are those which do not simply maintain dynastic control over the business but dynastic control over the family.  Marriages mostly take place within the extended family, daughters often pushed out of the process of succession.  The most remarkable and tenacious of such dynastic families – the Rothschilds –  exerted as much influence over the marriage choices of their members as any royal court. Rothschilds were strongly encouraged to marry Rothschilds.  Suzanne Peugeot, perhaps the most accomplished business woman in the book, married her cousin Jean-Frédéric Peugeot, brother of the founder of the modern enterprise.

       Successful dynasties transmit not only the ownership, but the values, of the builders of the businesses to successive generations.  John D Rockefeller, for whom Weber might have invented the term Protestant ethic, travelled to work on the Sixth Avenue el, and educated his children to earn nickels and dimes from household chores.  The notion of Protestant ethic recurs in the book, echoing a theme of Wealth and Poverty of Nations. Two of the three French dynasties are Protestant families and the other, the Alsatian Wendels, are much the least well known of all the families considered.  There is a hint that they may have been included specifically to de-emphasise the issue of religious affiliation.

       Religion is not an essential part of the dynastic story, but is a component.   The overall score is six Protestant, two Jewish, two Catholic and one Buddhist family.  The piety of the dynastic founders is part of the reason why the public service tradition remained so much stronger among the Rockefellers and Rothschilds than – say – the Barings and Morgans.  But the Catholic Agnellis are publicly known as much for their flamboyant lifestyle as for their business achievements.

       Landes appears to challenge the thesis of his Harvard contemporary and rival – Alfred Chandler – that the success of twentieth-century business was directly related to the speed of adoption of modern professional management systems. The way in which General Motors overtook Ford exemplifies Chandler’s thesis – was, indeed, the case from which Chandler began:  but Toyota’s subsequent success in overtaking General Motors might be used to develop a different position.  But, aside from occasional disparaging references to the bean counters of both Detroit companies, Landes does not develop the argument.

       Landes’ distaste for theories, especially formal theories in economics and business, is evident. Perhaps with good cause. This book is written, and reads, as a series of fascinating and individual stories, and can be sufficiently enjoyed for its gripping account of some of the most significant, and intriguing, figures in modern business.