Paper prepared for Session X: Diaspora entrepreneurial networks, Economic History
Congress XIII, Buenos Aires, 22-26 July 2002.
Address: H. Schijf, Department of Sociology/Anthropology of the Universiteit van
Amsterdam, O.Z. Achterburgwal 185, 1012 DK Amsterdam.
e-mail: [email protected]
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1. It is beyond the scope of this paper to describe the historiography of Jewish bankers, but the variety in background of the studies is enormous, ranging from anti-Semitic tirades or hagiographic publications to careful academic studies. Some German publications in the 1930s clearly wanted to prove the crucial role played by the Jewish business elite in the German economy. We know the sad ending of this contribution.Very useful are local studies on banking, for example: Jonker (1994 and 1996) for the Dutch situation, Chapman (1984) and Cassis (1994) for London and various German studies on banking and banking houses. Also invaluable are the studies by Mosse (1987; 1989), but he restricts himself to the Jewish business elite within Germany. Many studies refer to Emden (1938) who provides many valuable details on banking families, but does not give any references to the whereabouts of his information.
...International banking by Jewish banking families is a thing of the past, but their banking power remained the subject of anti-Semitic stereotyping for a long time afterwards (Tanner 1998) and which had his mainspring in “the fear that demonstrable Jewish pre-eminence proved hidden Jewish domination,” as Fritz Stern has aptly put it (1977:503). The Jewish success in banking has been sought in the intrinsic values of the Jewish religion comparable to the correlation Max Weber saw between Protestantism and the rise of capitalism. The most prominent defender of this thesis was Werner Sombart in his Die Juden und das Wirtschaftsleben (1911). But one of his earliest and most extensive critiques (Guttman, 1913) already argued convincingly that Sombart’s thesis does not hold against empirical evidence and many other critiques argued in the same direction (see also Barth 1999:105, note 32). There is therefore no reason to pursue further Sombart’s arguments for the nineteenth century in this paper.
International Jewish Bankers Between 1850 and 1914: An Example of Internationalisation Along Ethnic Lines
Download 10Schijf205
Congress XIII, Buenos Aires, 22-26 July 2002.
Address: H. Schijf, Department of Sociology/Anthropology of the Universiteit van
Amsterdam, O.Z. Achterburgwal 185, 1012 DK Amsterdam.
e-mail: [email protected]
--
1. It is beyond the scope of this paper to describe the historiography of Jewish bankers, but the variety in background of the studies is enormous, ranging from anti-Semitic tirades or hagiographic publications to careful academic studies. Some German publications in the 1930s clearly wanted to prove the crucial role played by the Jewish business elite in the German economy. We know the sad ending of this contribution.Very useful are local studies on banking, for example: Jonker (1994 and 1996) for the Dutch situation, Chapman (1984) and Cassis (1994) for London and various German studies on banking and banking houses. Also invaluable are the studies by Mosse (1987; 1989), but he restricts himself to the Jewish business elite within Germany. Many studies refer to Emden (1938) who provides many valuable details on banking families, but does not give any references to the whereabouts of his information.
...International banking by Jewish banking families is a thing of the past, but their banking power remained the subject of anti-Semitic stereotyping for a long time afterwards (Tanner 1998) and which had his mainspring in “the fear that demonstrable Jewish pre-eminence proved hidden Jewish domination,” as Fritz Stern has aptly put it (1977:503). The Jewish success in banking has been sought in the intrinsic values of the Jewish religion comparable to the correlation Max Weber saw between Protestantism and the rise of capitalism. The most prominent defender of this thesis was Werner Sombart in his Die Juden und das Wirtschaftsleben (1911). But one of his earliest and most extensive critiques (Guttman, 1913) already argued convincingly that Sombart’s thesis does not hold against empirical evidence and many other critiques argued in the same direction (see also Barth 1999:105, note 32). There is therefore no reason to pursue further Sombart’s arguments for the nineteenth century in this paper.
International Jewish Bankers Between 1850 and 1914: An Example of Internationalisation Along Ethnic Lines
Download 10Schijf205
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