1 00:00:04,730 --> 00:00:10,300 Good evening, will make a start. Welcome to Friday night's seminar here, Middle East sentence nonsense. 2 00:00:10,300 --> 00:00:17,870 My name is Michael Willis, director of Middle East Centre, and we are very pleased to welcome all of you, our friends and colleagues here. 3 00:00:17,870 --> 00:00:22,720 The Lecture Theatre in Oxford, and also many friends and colleagues online. 4 00:00:22,720 --> 00:00:29,980 Different parents believing in seeing from all over the world. So welcome to evening is the sixth of our weekly Friday seminar series. 5 00:00:29,980 --> 00:00:37,540 Those of you who have been attending throughout this tour will know that this series so far has focussed on research 6 00:00:37,540 --> 00:00:44,530 and publications and books being written by members of a modern Middle Eastern studies community here at Oxford. 7 00:00:44,530 --> 00:00:49,840 Now this evening, we have a lecture by someone who, although part of another university community, 8 00:00:49,840 --> 00:00:54,820 we still very much like to play as a member of the academic family here at the Medical Centre. 9 00:00:54,820 --> 00:01:03,460 Professor Joseph Sassoon is director of the Centre for Contemporary Arab Studies at Georgetown University in Washington, DC and states. 10 00:01:03,460 --> 00:01:05,350 But much more importantly, 11 00:01:05,350 --> 00:01:13,060 he's a graduate of this college maze where he completed his defender is also a longtime friend and supporter of the Middle East Centre, 12 00:01:13,060 --> 00:01:19,750 where he sits on the centre's advisory board and Nancy's College, of which he is a foundation fellow. 13 00:01:19,750 --> 00:01:24,940 Most of you will probably be aware Joseph took his work on modern Iraq. 14 00:01:24,940 --> 00:01:27,850 Notably, his book was Saddam Hussein's Baath Party, 15 00:01:27,850 --> 00:01:35,750 inside an authoritarian regime where he used the released the documents that were taken in Iraq after the invasion. 16 00:01:35,750 --> 00:01:42,400 With all the details of the Baath Party and wrote a fascinating internal history of the fall of the Saddam Hussein, 17 00:01:42,400 --> 00:01:48,490 he also wrote a book on the Iraqi refugees of the first decade of the 21st century and more recently, 18 00:01:48,490 --> 00:01:54,970 his book Autonomy of Authoritarianism in the Arab Republics has become a mainstay of bibliographies and of course, 19 00:01:54,970 --> 00:01:58,510 reading lists which seek to explain authoritarianism and region. 20 00:01:58,510 --> 00:02:04,810 And it has several occasions where people I had the unusual experience of somebody saying that they 21 00:02:04,810 --> 00:02:09,280 heard of the book that I wrote and then said it because it was mentioned in Joseph's testimony. 22 00:02:09,280 --> 00:02:16,750 So thank you very much, Joseph, for giving me a little bit of outrage, even though so thank you, I've certainly definitely got more coverage. 23 00:02:16,750 --> 00:02:23,290 Thanks to you, but thank you very much. Now, this evening, we are here to hear Jose introduce and speak about his new book, 24 00:02:23,290 --> 00:02:27,100 which moves away from a more contemporary focus of his recent research and 25 00:02:27,100 --> 00:02:31,570 writings to look at the remarkable history branch of his own extended family. 26 00:02:31,570 --> 00:02:38,560 As Joseph will say, it's not the direct family, but the branch of his own extended family and what is entitled Global Merchants, 27 00:02:38,560 --> 00:02:41,140 The Enterprise and Extravagance of the Sassoon Dynasty. 28 00:02:41,140 --> 00:02:47,410 Now, if you would like a copy, we do have copies outside and you'll be most welcome to buy them after the session. 29 00:02:47,410 --> 00:02:51,970 Now, I don't want to give too much away about the book before Joseph speaks to slice to say, 30 00:02:51,970 --> 00:02:55,870 but it maybe is an absolutely fascinating story that's told. That's in the book. 31 00:02:55,870 --> 00:03:03,700 Moreover, encountered rather appropriately in a college Porter's lodge here in Oxford, Joseph will say something about that. 32 00:03:03,700 --> 00:03:10,150 It's also a story that has many connexions to the family history of all of their emeritus fellow at the Middle East Centre. 33 00:03:10,150 --> 00:03:18,550 Professor Averagely, who like Joseph, also hails from Baghdad and who is also writing himself about his own family's history. 34 00:03:18,550 --> 00:03:26,200 So therefore, we are delighted to have Abby join us and helped us discuss Joseph's books, which we do after Joseph is spoken. 35 00:03:26,200 --> 00:03:32,470 Joseph will start speaking about the book, then we will have Avi and Joseph discussing the common themes within it, 36 00:03:32,470 --> 00:03:39,340 and then we'll open it up to questions and discussion to the audience, both here in Oxford and to those of you online. 37 00:03:39,340 --> 00:03:46,120 If you would like to ask a question or make a comment online, please use the Q&A function that you'll find on Zoom. 38 00:03:46,120 --> 00:03:49,540 Just type in your question you can leave your name or not, 39 00:03:49,540 --> 00:03:54,460 and we'll process that which you use that you can select any time you draw on that when you have time. 40 00:03:54,460 --> 00:03:58,870 But you haven't come here to this debate. We had to hear about Joseph Joseph. 41 00:03:58,870 --> 00:04:02,890 Thank you. Thank you. Thank you very much, Michael, and thank you. 42 00:04:02,890 --> 00:04:11,290 It is absolutely wonderful to be back here where I feel it's really on every book I've after coming out. 43 00:04:11,290 --> 00:04:20,770 It has been connected to here. It did start this book somewhere else, not maybe at some time to me, but at all souls. 44 00:04:20,770 --> 00:04:28,030 But there is also a culprit here sitting in the front row who has been pushing me for the last seven years. 45 00:04:28,030 --> 00:04:32,260 That is Eugene Rogan to write the book. 46 00:04:32,260 --> 00:04:43,210 The book has really many facets the life of al-Baghdadi, Jewish family trade and colonialism, family rifts and issues facing dynasties, 47 00:04:43,210 --> 00:04:51,530 globalisation in the 19th century and what it meant for global trader anglicised zation and the desperate need 48 00:04:51,530 --> 00:05:00,910 for immigrant families to be accepted in a new homeland and why some dynasties decline and others continue. 49 00:05:00,910 --> 00:05:04,800 But I thought as this. What is part of the Middle East Centre? 50 00:05:04,800 --> 00:05:13,500 It is only appropriate to focus on the first feature being the Baghdadi family and the connexion to their place of birth. 51 00:05:13,500 --> 00:05:19,510 But I will also talk briefly about Drake and few other aspects. 52 00:05:19,510 --> 00:05:27,970 There are many characters in this book, but five main figures successively take centre stage. 53 00:05:27,970 --> 00:05:40,390 David Sassoon, the first the founder of the Dynasty. His eldest son Abdullah, who later on in the 1870s becomes Sir Albert, his second son, Elias, 54 00:05:40,390 --> 00:05:50,500 who built the business in China and father who later changes her name to Flora, the first woman in the family, to run the global business. 55 00:05:50,500 --> 00:05:58,570 And finally, Sir Victor Cecil, who presided over the business in the last twenty five years. 56 00:05:58,570 --> 00:06:06,310 Other characters include Sir Philip Sassoon, Siegfried says put the famous World War One poet and, 57 00:06:06,310 --> 00:06:12,340 of course, other siblings of Abdullah and L.E.S and their descendants. 58 00:06:12,340 --> 00:06:17,410 The family, one of the things that really led me to, as Michael mentioned, 59 00:06:17,410 --> 00:06:27,520 to move a little bit from authoritarianism to talk about this is the incredible trove of documents that I have found. 60 00:06:27,520 --> 00:06:35,260 The family seems to have kept every scrap of paper in their archives stretched for more than 100 years, 61 00:06:35,260 --> 00:06:41,950 and they engaged in copious correspondence, both for business and social matters. 62 00:06:41,950 --> 00:06:52,900 Almost all the business correspondence, at least until 1920, was written in Baghdad Jewish to prevent outsiders from reading their letters. 63 00:06:52,900 --> 00:06:59,830 Family members used their dialect, but wrote it in Hebrew characters jumping from one subject to another. 64 00:06:59,830 --> 00:07:07,480 You can see there are no paragraphs. It's formal in the beginning, very respectful. 65 00:07:07,480 --> 00:07:13,060 But by the third line criticism between one brother to another. 66 00:07:13,060 --> 00:07:20,350 Complaining about different issues reputation of the family was of utmost importance. 67 00:07:20,350 --> 00:07:31,760 Interestingly, most of the social news within the family was in English, particularly towards the end of the 19th century. 68 00:07:31,760 --> 00:07:40,490 Let me just talk a little bit about Baghdad, because the family lived in Baghdad for almost two thousand five hundred years. 69 00:07:40,490 --> 00:07:48,180 But the early 19th century conflict with the governor who was embezzling taxes led share assault. 70 00:07:48,180 --> 00:08:01,130 al-Sadr, father of David the one, show his picture of the founder to leave Baghdad with his eldest son after a year in Bushehr in southern Iran. 71 00:08:01,130 --> 00:08:07,610 He died at his family, now headed by the oldest son, David moved to Bombay. 72 00:08:07,610 --> 00:08:14,450 There have been many erroneous versions of why David and his father and shift system fled Baghdad. 73 00:08:14,450 --> 00:08:22,520 These versions, even repeated by members of the family research in the Ottoman archives, 74 00:08:22,520 --> 00:08:33,320 clearly debunks the idea that anti-Semitism was the reason for the escaped Baghdad and its merchants suffered from all religions, 75 00:08:33,320 --> 00:08:42,080 suffered at the hands of a corrupt, wily Pasha, who was known to embezzle money from these merchant families and, 76 00:08:42,080 --> 00:08:48,380 if they refuse, would arrest one of the sons until he received his ransom. 77 00:08:48,380 --> 00:08:54,770 Indeed, David was arrested to put pressure on his father, the Shia, who better answer. 78 00:08:54,770 --> 00:09:00,740 And when David was really, like, immediately followed by his father, 79 00:09:00,740 --> 00:09:09,600 all David's siblings stayed and live in Baghdad, and I am the descendant of one of those siblings. 80 00:09:09,600 --> 00:09:16,920 It seems that during the year it was sheer father and son learnt about commercial opportunities 81 00:09:16,920 --> 00:09:25,080 in Bombay from visiting British officials and from traders based around the Persian Gulf ports. 82 00:09:25,080 --> 00:09:34,620 Bushehr itself was slowly emerging as a commercial port and a bustling centre for the East India Company in Persia, 83 00:09:34,620 --> 00:09:41,280 with Indian merchants passing through and shipped through on ships flying the British flag. 84 00:09:41,280 --> 00:09:49,160 All this allowed the system to learn about India in general and Bombay in particular. 85 00:09:49,160 --> 00:09:59,120 When David Sassoon arrived in Bombay sometime in 1832, he began a new chapter in the history of the Sistine Chapel. 86 00:09:59,120 --> 00:10:06,200 Bombay is inhabited that the time numbered no more than 200000 but were very diverse. 87 00:10:06,200 --> 00:10:11,480 Hindus, Muslims, Parsis, Armenians, Portuguese and Jews. 88 00:10:11,480 --> 00:10:21,500 There was a Jewish connexion with Bombay from the 16th century as one of the eminent Portuguese traders residing in Bombay was a Jew. 89 00:10:21,500 --> 00:10:31,100 That there was no community until the second half of the 18th century when four different migrations came to the city. 90 00:10:31,100 --> 00:10:36,470 The first of their native dual caste, known as the is right. 91 00:10:36,470 --> 00:10:42,560 The second was Arab Jews from Ottoman provinces of Baghdad, Basra and Aleppo. 92 00:10:42,560 --> 00:10:51,470 And the third was coaching Jews from the Malabar coast and the fourth or Persian speaking Jews from Afghanistan. 93 00:10:51,470 --> 00:11:04,500 Woollahra a mess in Iraq. The migration of Arab Jews was strictly based on economic reasons to take advantage of commercial opportunities in India. 94 00:11:04,500 --> 00:11:10,410 Documents show that these Jews arrived in the last couple of decades of the 18th century. 95 00:11:10,410 --> 00:11:16,370 Prominent amongst them was a member of the well-known Basra family of the By. 96 00:11:16,370 --> 00:11:28,650 Later, intermarried with Sassoon, by the early 1830s, there were approximately 20 to 30 families of a total Jewish population of about 2000. 97 00:11:28,650 --> 00:11:37,730 And these families call themselves quote Jewish merchants of Arabia, inhabitants and residents in Bombay, 98 00:11:37,730 --> 00:11:46,880 and to quote one transfer to the city in 1837 estimated the number of Baghdadi's A 350, 99 00:11:46,880 --> 00:11:51,860 which represented less than one percent of the total population. 100 00:11:51,860 --> 00:12:05,150 Later on, Arab Jews were referred to erroneously as the Baghdadi Jews, irrelevant of where they came from as long as they were from Moslem country. 101 00:12:05,150 --> 00:12:08,780 While David did not have any experience in trading, 102 00:12:08,780 --> 00:12:20,330 he benefited from two intangible assets extensive contact in the first year as a result of the family's involvement for many years in collecting 103 00:12:20,330 --> 00:12:32,600 taxes for the ultimate support in the province of Baghdad and their good reputation amongst the merchant families in the Ottoman Empire and Iran. 104 00:12:32,600 --> 00:12:42,560 Yet in spite of all these preparation, it must have been daunting to take this young family and siblings across the Arabian Sea 105 00:12:42,560 --> 00:12:50,660 to a foreign city where no family member resided and far away from home in Baghdad. 106 00:12:50,660 --> 00:12:54,860 Family was of immense importance to David Sassoon. 107 00:12:54,860 --> 00:13:01,880 His first wife died at a young age in Baghdad after burying him two sons and two daughters. 108 00:13:01,880 --> 00:13:08,360 His second wife, who outlived, later gave birth to six sons and four daughters. 109 00:13:08,360 --> 00:13:18,020 Those are survivor. So in essence, you have a little army of 14 children who were spread around the globe. 110 00:13:18,020 --> 00:13:22,820 Their sons were trained in business from their youth and were later sent to 111 00:13:22,820 --> 00:13:29,570 different locations such as Baghdad and the Gulf Port to meet other traders, 112 00:13:29,570 --> 00:13:34,710 gain experience and learn Arabic. Once in Bombay, 113 00:13:34,710 --> 00:13:44,380 David realised the fate and success of the family had to be tied to the British Empire and the firm of David Sassoon and 114 00:13:44,380 --> 00:13:56,120 Sons began a long connexion serving British colonial economic and political interests wherever they had branched out. 115 00:13:56,120 --> 00:14:02,420 Although the founder, David Cecil, neither set foot in Britain nor spoke English. 116 00:14:02,420 --> 00:14:08,990 David Sassoon was granted British citizenship in recognition of his service. 117 00:14:08,990 --> 00:14:17,930 He was fluent in Arabic, Hebrew, Persian and Turkish and learnt to study but never learnt English. 118 00:14:17,930 --> 00:14:24,920 Twenty years after his arrival in Bombay, he swore the oath of allegiance to the British, 119 00:14:24,920 --> 00:14:30,080 and he still had not learnt enough English to sign his own name. 120 00:14:30,080 --> 00:14:33,140 It was signed in Hebrew. 121 00:14:33,140 --> 00:14:44,720 Growing up in the Ottoman Empire, he never understood why his oath of allegiance was not only to a sovereign but to the East India Company, 122 00:14:44,720 --> 00:14:54,140 which control India at the time. Despite his identification with the British and loyalty to the Empire, 123 00:14:54,140 --> 00:15:05,290 even when he began to attend ceremonies where British officials noted his generosity, he invariably replied in his native our. 124 00:15:05,290 --> 00:15:14,060 It is really important to underline that Arabic was very important for the first and second generation of the Sunni. 125 00:15:14,060 --> 00:15:24,510 His son, Abdullah, who inherited David, was not different in this regard, in spite of his keen interest in all things British. 126 00:15:24,510 --> 00:15:32,440 Arabic remained his primary language, and he insisted that his family and employees learnt well. 127 00:15:32,440 --> 00:15:38,890 In one letter, he mandated that all clerks in one day be able to write in error. 128 00:15:38,890 --> 00:15:48,730 In another surprise and irritation at the inability of any of the clerks in Hong Kong to write the language properly. 129 00:15:48,730 --> 00:15:57,330 This is by 1890. David was, by nature, risk averse and studied every possible difficult. 130 00:15:57,330 --> 00:16:12,150 In 1843 44, he said his second son is to explore the possibility of expanding into China after spending time in Canton, Hong Kong and Shanghai. 131 00:16:12,150 --> 00:16:20,130 And he is reported back on the tremendous opportunities in this enormous new country. 132 00:16:20,130 --> 00:16:32,730 This coincided with the end of the first Opium War 1839 1842 and the opening of Shanghai to foreigners in the early 1850s, 133 00:16:32,730 --> 00:16:40,410 and he settled in Shanghai and began reporting daily to his father in Bombay. 134 00:16:40,410 --> 00:16:48,360 The year 1858 was an important turning point in the destiny of the show's descendants. 135 00:16:48,360 --> 00:16:59,370 Two major events occurred the legalisation of opium in China and the dissolution of the British East India conflict. 136 00:16:59,370 --> 00:17:07,440 The latter followed the empress had done and expected Indian rebellion against the British 1857, 137 00:17:07,440 --> 00:17:16,080 after which the British government took direct control of India opening free trade to Indians and foreigners. 138 00:17:16,080 --> 00:17:28,650 This allowed families such as the sisters to capitalise on the vast commercial opportunities in the spread of the family was so why? 139 00:17:28,650 --> 00:17:32,610 This is a map of where they really spread around. 140 00:17:32,610 --> 00:17:38,850 You could see there is major city port. The three in red are the major hub. 141 00:17:38,850 --> 00:17:46,710 The first hop was Bombay, then the second hub was Shanghai, and the third one was in London. 142 00:17:46,710 --> 00:17:53,910 I think it is really important to deliberate the relationship between the family and British imperialism, 143 00:17:53,910 --> 00:18:00,510 as this needs to be seen in the context of a new immigrant family who landed in 144 00:18:00,510 --> 00:18:05,610 a foreign country that was governed by the most powerful country in the world. 145 00:18:05,610 --> 00:18:14,970 The British Empire and the East India conflict, which ruled India, as I mentioned, until the end of the 1850s. 146 00:18:14,970 --> 00:18:22,770 This issues were not only immigrant family, but there were also a part of the truly small minority. 147 00:18:22,770 --> 00:18:36,740 And interestingly enough, other minorities were not racist migrants to Bombay, such as the Nazis, also identified with British colonialism. 148 00:18:36,740 --> 00:18:41,570 Let me turn and talk a little bit about the business. 149 00:18:41,570 --> 00:18:50,060 Two commodities changed Bombay financially and led to the rise of a new global merchant cartel and opium, 150 00:18:50,060 --> 00:18:58,580 though David Cicilline was not involved in those commodities. Initially, he monitor closely the trading scene involved. 151 00:18:58,580 --> 00:19:07,790 His name is not mentioned in the archives or local newspapers throughout the 1830s and most of the 1840s. 152 00:19:07,790 --> 00:19:15,470 David Caecilians, right to be amongst the top businessmen of Bombay was the slow and gradual. 153 00:19:15,470 --> 00:19:20,630 There was not a one event or trade that changed the picture rather. 154 00:19:20,630 --> 00:19:31,430 But he kept developing a network of local and foreign traders and trustworthy counterparts and learning not only where the opportunities lie, 155 00:19:31,430 --> 00:19:36,320 but also out of trade and negotiations. 156 00:19:36,320 --> 00:19:45,080 He would spend days, for example, by the cotton exchange talking to traders agents and scrutinise the international news. 157 00:19:45,080 --> 00:19:53,510 Careful. David was convinced to enter the cotton market by witnessing the surge in demand for Indian 158 00:19:53,510 --> 00:20:01,880 carpet after the panic caused by the failure of American golf in late eighteen fifties. 159 00:20:01,880 --> 00:20:07,460 Powerful trade circles such as the Manchester Chamber of Commerce had recognised 160 00:20:07,460 --> 00:20:13,490 India could displace America as the most important source for this wide goal. 161 00:20:13,490 --> 00:20:23,170 But until 1850s, high transportation costs made Indian cotton less attractive. 162 00:20:23,170 --> 00:20:33,820 Outbreak of the American Civil War and consequent collapse of American exports of cotton provoked skyrocketing prices and a frenzy of 163 00:20:33,820 --> 00:20:46,060 speculation as when Beck rolled cotton shipment changed hands many times between spectrum before delivery to factories with each exchange, 164 00:20:46,060 --> 00:20:48,810 a small profit could be made. 165 00:20:48,810 --> 00:20:58,380 The value of carton more than quadruple in the first two years of the war, pushing Indian peasants to increase their production. 166 00:20:58,380 --> 00:21:06,120 There was even woolmer's that people were tearing apart their mattresses and selling the car. 167 00:21:06,120 --> 00:21:14,460 Before long, however, there were signs that the market was losing steam and too many traders had too much stock. 168 00:21:14,460 --> 00:21:21,540 The explosive growth of cotton in India had been matched in other countries, such as Egypt and Brazil. 169 00:21:21,540 --> 00:21:27,960 And global oversupply was a major concern. By 1865, 170 00:21:27,960 --> 00:21:34,860 reports began to circulate that cotton traders were experiencing big losses and that the 171 00:21:34,860 --> 00:21:43,690 steep fall in prices was creating havoc as traders did their utmost to unload their stock. 172 00:21:43,690 --> 00:21:55,660 A year later, reports carried details of a Bombay devastated financially, with estimates of almost 80 percent of traders filing bankruptcy, 173 00:21:55,660 --> 00:22:02,140 as one brother admitted to another brother that he could not sleep for worry and opined 174 00:22:02,140 --> 00:22:08,650 that every member of the family had to be vigilant in order to avoid large losses, 175 00:22:08,650 --> 00:22:18,130 since that would damage the most important element in their business, their reputation, which was sacrosanct. 176 00:22:18,130 --> 00:22:19,780 The violence went in, 177 00:22:19,780 --> 00:22:30,730 causing the crisis illustrates how global merchants conducted their business in the mid-19th century without a vast communications system. 178 00:22:30,730 --> 00:22:38,580 The Telegraph was becoming available. It was very expensive and not confidential. 179 00:22:38,580 --> 00:22:46,620 The business was set up, so each major hub had its own house and each house made independent decisions. 180 00:22:46,620 --> 00:22:59,530 The relationship of trust amongst the branches allowed these family members to prosper, but it also led to constant recrimination and friction. 181 00:22:59,530 --> 00:23:11,140 Information was accordingly at the core of the most merchant's activities, exacerbating the scarcity of reliable information. 182 00:23:11,140 --> 00:23:19,870 Were they employees or agents working for the merchant but selling the information to a competitor? 183 00:23:19,870 --> 00:23:33,650 And here really where this decision had that advantage with their own language because all their documents were unreadable to anyone else. 184 00:23:33,650 --> 00:23:45,980 Also, because of this emphasis on the information, David was the first merchant in India, the time to send their son to London. 185 00:23:45,980 --> 00:23:56,630 This really proved to be critical as the son had more information about the ongoing of the American Civil War than those in India, 186 00:23:56,630 --> 00:24:00,760 which gave the family an advantage. 187 00:24:00,760 --> 00:24:15,220 Volatile times needed nerves of steel and experience, what is really remarkable was the young the sent to all the corners of Asia to run the business. 188 00:24:15,220 --> 00:24:21,100 For example, India's when he was sent the first time to Shanghai, he was about 16 and a half. 189 00:24:21,100 --> 00:24:34,890 17 year old son running Hong Kong in 1864 was 24, while the one in Shanghai, Sulaiman, was only 23 years old. 190 00:24:34,890 --> 00:24:48,090 I tried to tell this to my students that there is no doubt that British imperialism and colonial interests for China to purchase opium. 191 00:24:48,090 --> 00:24:55,710 This is just probably began trading in the 1840s after India arrived in China. 192 00:24:55,710 --> 00:25:04,740 And initially there were very small players in comparison to some Indian traders or British firms such as Jardine Matheson, 193 00:25:04,740 --> 00:25:11,840 but only slowly later the sessions became a significant part of the trade. 194 00:25:11,840 --> 00:25:20,180 While opium had been used for thousands of years in India and China, both for medical and recreational use, 195 00:25:20,180 --> 00:25:30,560 the British victory in the Opium War opened the door to the export of large quantities of Indian opium to China. 196 00:25:30,560 --> 00:25:35,930 This became an intern, an integral part of a triangle trade. 197 00:25:35,930 --> 00:25:40,970 British people had become addicted to tea and developed a taste for Chinese, 198 00:25:40,970 --> 00:25:52,280 so that had nothing to export to China and enrich our opium filled the gap for decades and made up 16 percent of its total revenue. 199 00:25:52,280 --> 00:26:02,480 It also became the world's most valuable traded commodities in 1816 and remained so for a quarter of a century. 200 00:26:02,480 --> 00:26:11,840 In the words of one Indian scholar, Bombay became a great commercial and industrial centre thanks to the opium business. 201 00:26:11,840 --> 00:26:20,780 Another star argued that quote without the drug, there probably would have to no British Empire and a foot. 202 00:26:20,780 --> 00:26:30,520 Maybe that's a little bit exaggeration. This story of opium is woven throughout more than 60 years in the life of the 203 00:26:30,520 --> 00:26:36,570 Sassoon Dynasty and their role in the opium business in India and China is in it. 204 00:26:36,570 --> 00:26:40,470 It's of oblique tied to the family's success. 205 00:26:40,470 --> 00:26:54,000 By the 1850s, opium had become an integral part of the family's trading business, particularly after its legalisation in eighteen fifty eight. 206 00:26:54,000 --> 00:27:02,250 The Sons, as you can see in the map, branched out to Singapore, Rangoon, Nagasaki, the other port cities. 207 00:27:02,250 --> 00:27:09,600 And according to the Jardine Matheson Archives, this issue was adopted to cut the opium prices, 208 00:27:09,600 --> 00:27:16,080 providing loans to producers in India, making bulk sales at low rates, 209 00:27:16,080 --> 00:27:22,140 combined with advances to Chinese dealers and probably most effective, 210 00:27:22,140 --> 00:27:31,290 advancing as much as three quarters of the cost to Indian dealers willing to consign shipments on a regular basis. 211 00:27:31,290 --> 00:27:39,190 And this strategy proved to be. Traders were there off of here, 212 00:27:39,190 --> 00:27:48,820 more caution prefer to deal with this spills because of their willingness to pay up to 50 percent of the value of the merchandise. 213 00:27:48,820 --> 00:27:56,730 Furthermore, the family worked hard to maintain its relationship with its partners. 214 00:27:56,730 --> 00:28:04,320 The opium trade began to weaken by the 1890s due to international and regional factors. 215 00:28:04,320 --> 00:28:15,540 Opium is a case study of how interrelated some politics were during global expansion, I guess still today consistent from the beginning. 216 00:28:15,540 --> 00:28:25,970 The sisters mustered all their connexions and political clout with the British government to ensure favourable opium trade terms. 217 00:28:25,970 --> 00:28:32,970 It was intertwined with the British ideology of free trade and its colonial policy. 218 00:28:32,970 --> 00:28:43,590 This issue's build strong relations with British politicians and senior officials to aid them in keeping up the trade. 219 00:28:43,590 --> 00:28:49,770 Faced by political agitation, by both the House of Commons and House of Lords, 220 00:28:49,770 --> 00:28:56,070 the British government did what governments do best when tough decisions need to be made. 221 00:28:56,070 --> 00:29:06,360 It form a commission of enquiry to study the subject in detail, thereby delay the need for immediate action. 222 00:29:06,360 --> 00:29:16,520 The commission collected incredible amount of data gather witness responses from a large array of individuals. 223 00:29:16,520 --> 00:29:24,980 Narration, the finished report is seven volumes, a total of 2500 pages, 224 00:29:24,980 --> 00:29:33,200 and it is one of the most prised sources on opium in all its features during the 19th century. 225 00:29:33,200 --> 00:29:39,330 But the commission reached the following conclusion. 226 00:29:39,330 --> 00:29:47,310 As a result of a searching enquiry and upon a deliberate review of the copious evidence submitted to us, 227 00:29:47,310 --> 00:29:58,890 we feel bound to express our conviction that the movement in England in favour of active interference on the part of the Imperial Parliament for 228 00:29:58,890 --> 00:30:13,020 the suppression of the opium habit in India has receded from an exaggerated impression as to the nature and extent of the evil to be controlled. 229 00:30:13,020 --> 00:30:19,090 The gloomy descriptions presented to British audiences of extensive wardrobe 230 00:30:19,090 --> 00:30:26,660 and physical degradation by Rokia have not been accepted by the witnesses. 231 00:30:26,660 --> 00:30:35,630 Representing the people of India, nor by those most responsible for this government of the country. 232 00:30:35,630 --> 00:30:39,930 This was truly an incredible conclusion. 233 00:30:39,930 --> 00:30:51,660 Effectively, after six years, the commission report removes the opium question from the British public agenda for another 50 years. 234 00:30:51,660 --> 00:30:59,250 The view of the Indian government prevailed for financial reasons and for the empty opium lobby. 235 00:30:59,250 --> 00:31:07,900 This was a severe blow after it felt it had garnered support politically and public. 236 00:31:07,900 --> 00:31:14,620 Though the battle was lost in 1895, the war was not over on both sides. 237 00:31:14,620 --> 00:31:20,900 And this saga continues after World War One. 238 00:31:20,900 --> 00:31:28,760 In spite of the stigma attached to the trade and the growing opposition in the second half of the 19th century, 239 00:31:28,760 --> 00:31:38,360 this is one that other traders continue to defend the trade and attempt to put a halt to restrictions imposed by China. 240 00:31:38,360 --> 00:31:44,570 That has shown a sort of Bombay's trade came from opium even before the Sisulu's arrived, 241 00:31:44,570 --> 00:31:53,870 and the families simply viewed it as a viable trading business imitating successful local and foreign traders. 242 00:31:53,870 --> 00:32:03,620 This assumes our guys are also totally void of any self-criticism or doubt about the effects of opium. 243 00:32:03,620 --> 00:32:12,920 Apart from opium and cotton, the other main commodities that they traded were still indigo, rice and pearls. 244 00:32:12,920 --> 00:32:26,430 They were never in the money lending business, but they invested in different banks in India, Persia, Hong Kong, Shanghai and the UK. 245 00:32:26,430 --> 00:32:32,580 Overall, the family was fortunate to have other major factors working in its favour. 246 00:32:32,580 --> 00:32:38,730 Global commodity prices began to warm the second part of the 19th century as 247 00:32:38,730 --> 00:32:46,320 industrialisation and economic growth were taking place in the major economies of the world. 248 00:32:46,320 --> 00:32:57,660 But British ideology emphasised free trade, guided the government's policies worldwide and facilitated the operation of global trading. 249 00:32:57,660 --> 00:33:09,940 And lastly, the development of transport within and outside India, particularly the opening of the Suez Canal in 1869. 250 00:33:09,940 --> 00:33:12,280 This commercial success continued, 251 00:33:12,280 --> 00:33:20,830 in spite of the risks and splits within the family that followed the death of the founder, David, so that's in the book. 252 00:33:20,830 --> 00:33:26,710 I'm not going to talk about it. I just want to make a very few general remarks. 253 00:33:26,710 --> 00:33:38,800 One is the connexion to Hollywood, and Baghdad was almost there amongst the first and second generations of this system, even in the 1850s. 254 00:33:38,800 --> 00:33:48,340 They were still referring to Bombay as Benedict in Delhi, one of the English for religious questions or issues. 255 00:33:48,340 --> 00:33:54,310 They turn to Baghdad and its rivals, and even in later decades, 256 00:33:54,310 --> 00:34:05,020 when the system intermingled with the English aristocracy and married outside the Baghdad Jewish circle, there were reminders always of their rules. 257 00:34:05,020 --> 00:34:15,990 This is their crest. And around 1888, a double up by then, Sir Albert wanted to imitate the European families. 258 00:34:15,990 --> 00:34:24,150 So as you can see the top of the crust, there is the Hebrew words and that they will not. 259 00:34:24,150 --> 00:34:31,200 And then the Latin at the bottom can be a constant with candour and consistency at 260 00:34:31,200 --> 00:34:37,620 first being used actually by the Earl of Coventry a century and a half earlier. 261 00:34:37,620 --> 00:34:46,890 David probably would have approved of the primacy of trust and reputation and perhaps also the palm tree, 262 00:34:46,890 --> 00:34:51,930 which the press carried as their reminder of their Baghdadi roots, 263 00:34:51,930 --> 00:35:02,300 but also the fact that date palms were crazy both in the Bible and the Koran, and became symbols of beauty and plenty. 264 00:35:02,300 --> 00:35:12,890 The coat of arms was later added to many of the family's buildings in Bombay and London, and also to the grave of the founder. 265 00:35:12,890 --> 00:35:19,250 What is really intriguing, Daryn? Hundred and thirty years old, Aadhaar archives, 266 00:35:19,250 --> 00:35:29,810 there was not once a question whether the family should deal or not deal with someone because of religion, sect or nationality. 267 00:35:29,810 --> 00:35:36,380 One question was always in the archives was OK, can we trust this trader? 268 00:35:36,380 --> 00:35:50,890 And this, to me, was the real true globalisation of open borders and where they dealt with every sect and religion and part one last part. 269 00:35:50,890 --> 00:35:58,210 Philanthropy and actually, they initiated a very, very innovative method. 270 00:35:58,210 --> 00:36:08,390 They charge a philanthropy tax on every trade they get, whether that trade was profitable or not. 271 00:36:08,390 --> 00:36:16,150 You look at their accounting ledger, you see, you know, the cost of the purchase, the maritime tax, 272 00:36:16,150 --> 00:36:25,090 the insurance tax and then the philanthropy of zero point two five quarter of one percent at the end of the year. 273 00:36:25,090 --> 00:36:31,390 Of course, there were hundreds of trades, a lot of money accumulated to be given, 274 00:36:31,390 --> 00:36:38,200 and there a policy was to give only in the places where they were or were. 275 00:36:38,200 --> 00:36:42,580 So local communities benefited. 276 00:36:42,580 --> 00:36:49,120 But also, as did the poor and young in cities such as Bombay. 277 00:36:49,120 --> 00:36:54,730 One last word about the decline I'm not going to go to detail, 278 00:36:54,730 --> 00:37:03,340 but suffice to say that I believe that one of the main reason was their loss of their Arab Jewish identity. 279 00:37:03,340 --> 00:37:08,170 Anglicised Asian and the desperate need to be fully accepted by the English 280 00:37:08,170 --> 00:37:15,220 aristocracy led them to drift away from their traditions and from their businesses. 281 00:37:15,220 --> 00:37:19,750 Even though you're in their fancy estates, more interested in parties, 282 00:37:19,750 --> 00:37:27,430 horse racing and hunting than dealing with the dramatic changes that were taking place around the globe. 283 00:37:27,430 --> 00:37:32,950 Thank you. Thank you very much indeed, Joseph, for a fascinating lecture. 284 00:37:32,950 --> 00:37:37,120 There is so much in the book, but of course you could only cover some of the main things, 285 00:37:37,120 --> 00:37:45,160 and I'm very glad you did mention the client at the end, just because is one of the most fascinating parts of the story about how things rise, 286 00:37:45,160 --> 00:37:50,050 but also happens for the relatively quick Shutter Island like to invite ambition 287 00:37:50,050 --> 00:37:54,910 to join Jose to have a discussion about some of the themes in the book. 288 00:37:54,910 --> 00:38:02,740 As I mentioned earlier, there are many overlapping themes between Abbey's family history and Josephus, both hailing from Baghdad. 289 00:38:02,740 --> 00:38:10,780 Perhaps I would. You like to find just a few comments on having read the book and the sort of things the residents to achieve in summary. 290 00:38:10,780 --> 00:38:15,730 Thank you, Michael. Very glad we're like to start with a few comments. 291 00:38:15,730 --> 00:38:25,510 Having read the book from cover to cover and having heard just this past week when you were seekers and 292 00:38:25,510 --> 00:38:34,210 having read some of the reviews of his book and I would like to say is how impressed I was with this book. 293 00:38:34,210 --> 00:38:45,850 It's so deeply research, it's so elegantly written and it's beautifully produced, which makes it a real, real pleasure to read. 294 00:38:45,850 --> 00:38:54,040 And Joseph writes with, Well, I knew that he was trained in this college as an economic historian, 295 00:38:54,040 --> 00:39:00,730 so I had no doubt that he would deal really well with the context, with the backdrop, with globalisation. 296 00:39:00,730 --> 00:39:12,190 But I was really impressed by the sensitivity and skill with which he tells the story of this remarkable dynasty and the story of the people, 297 00:39:12,190 --> 00:39:26,020 the individuals, the business, as well as the role that they played in Iraq, in Britain, in India and in China. 298 00:39:26,020 --> 00:39:29,920 There are many merits to this book, and I could go on for a long time, 299 00:39:29,920 --> 00:39:38,650 but I would like to single out one factor that makes this book unique in this Joseph linguistic skills. 300 00:39:38,650 --> 00:39:43,390 As a friend of St. Anthony's and a fellow of the Middle East Centre, 301 00:39:43,390 --> 00:39:52,900 I have always valued the importance of languages in writing about history and the social sciences. 302 00:39:52,900 --> 00:40:00,100 For 25 years, I was an active member of the Department of Politics and International Relations, 303 00:40:00,100 --> 00:40:10,150 where it was possible to write the DPhil thesis on a country without knowing the language that's bad enough. 304 00:40:10,150 --> 00:40:13,510 But in America, it's even worse, much worse, 305 00:40:13,510 --> 00:40:26,260 because some American Department of Political Science supply the Sydney verb root Sydney verb was a distinguished social scientist, 306 00:40:26,260 --> 00:40:31,120 and the verbal said that no Ph.D. student, 307 00:40:31,120 --> 00:40:46,270 no graduate student should be allowed to write a Ph.D. on a country unless he or she had flown at least twice, apparently now to turn to the book. 308 00:40:46,270 --> 00:40:53,890 I have quite a lot of questions. One question is you're a member of the dynasty. 309 00:40:53,890 --> 00:41:04,000 You modestly describe yourself as a descendant of a modest branch of the dynasty, which stayed behind in Baghdad. 310 00:41:04,000 --> 00:41:12,400 How does your own connexion with the dynasty? How did it affect you if it did in any way? 311 00:41:12,400 --> 00:41:22,830 I actually never had any emotional attachment to that, and I really approached it as a historian from the beginning. 312 00:41:22,830 --> 00:41:30,480 As I mentioned, the only and only reason that I was willing to engage with it is really when I found these archives, 313 00:41:30,480 --> 00:41:35,460 which had not been used by actually anyone who reads the book, 314 00:41:35,460 --> 00:41:40,950 will realise I'm very harsh on the family and in many instances, 315 00:41:40,950 --> 00:41:50,280 sometimes maybe even comes across that I didn't like one or two personalities, but it it it really did not affect me. 316 00:41:50,280 --> 00:41:58,640 I didn't feel emotionally at times that if I read more about, you know. 317 00:41:58,640 --> 00:42:06,200 Negative aspect that is going to be reflecting, I did not think about it that way. 318 00:42:06,200 --> 00:42:17,360 OK. There is something specific to this biography, and that is the piece, it's a collective biography of a dynasty of a family. 319 00:42:17,360 --> 00:42:23,750 In this respect, it's unlike a traditional biography which is of one person. 320 00:42:23,750 --> 00:42:28,370 I myself have written the biography of King Hussein of Jordan, 321 00:42:28,370 --> 00:42:37,250 and I found it quite easy to write a biography rather than writing a more general book because you had a clear focus. 322 00:42:37,250 --> 00:42:45,980 There was one person, and it was easy to decide what to include and what not to include in the account. 323 00:42:45,980 --> 00:42:54,050 If the person that you are writing about was involved or was affected, then you would write about the episode about that, 324 00:42:54,050 --> 00:42:59,910 and otherwise you would leave the account with writing about the collective biography. 325 00:42:59,910 --> 00:43:04,410 You must have been a lot more complex and more difficult. Yes, I agree. 326 00:43:04,410 --> 00:43:13,310 Not only that, but you know, one of those main characters was kind of omitted by the other people. 327 00:43:13,310 --> 00:43:23,120 So there are two books on the show, and one was published in the 1930s and one was published by a journalist in the 1960s. 328 00:43:23,120 --> 00:43:29,030 These two books and one book in Hebrew basically talk about Farha. 329 00:43:29,030 --> 00:43:33,770 Three Lions only get six pages to her husband. 330 00:43:33,770 --> 00:43:41,480 Well, when you start going through the archives and you see the incredible amount of correspondence, 331 00:43:41,480 --> 00:43:55,790 and I you know that I really was one of the things that came across here is actually is the first global C woman that run a global business in 1895. 332 00:43:55,790 --> 00:44:06,560 It was really unheard of. There are a lot of other matriarchs, but not a running a day to day business in a global order. 333 00:44:06,560 --> 00:44:10,670 And that was really total. I mean, I tried to do it. 334 00:44:10,670 --> 00:44:16,530 You know, there is a huge amount about Victor Sassoon, and he left incredible amounts. 335 00:44:16,530 --> 00:44:28,040 So his diaries still exist from the 1920s until literally the day before he dies in the early 1960s. 336 00:44:28,040 --> 00:44:32,990 And he has cut every press that talks about him. 337 00:44:32,990 --> 00:44:37,850 You know, it really depends. Of course, we don't have a lot about the founder. 338 00:44:37,850 --> 00:44:47,960 It comes across and they didn't start this intensive correspondence until the 1850s when all the sun spread around, 339 00:44:47,960 --> 00:44:56,550 because in the beginning, they were all working from one single office in Bombay, so they didn't really have correspondence. 340 00:44:56,550 --> 00:45:04,810 So it was a problem. It was not easy allocating as much material to each one of them. 341 00:45:04,810 --> 00:45:14,260 I talked about the importance of languages, but I forgot to say why I made this clear. 342 00:45:14,260 --> 00:45:26,860 The reason was because they wanted to point out that most of the correspondence of the family was conducted in Arabic, and so it's Hebrew script. 343 00:45:26,860 --> 00:45:32,260 But the language the content is Judeo Arabic, which is the Baghdadi dialect. 344 00:45:32,260 --> 00:45:35,890 Arabic, yes, but written in Hebrew letters. 345 00:45:35,890 --> 00:45:47,590 And it's hard enough knowing Arabic and Hebrew, and Joseph is fluent in Arabic and in Hebrew and can read Arabic. 346 00:45:47,590 --> 00:45:55,660 So he's uniquely qualified to have been able to do the research that went into this book. 347 00:45:55,660 --> 00:46:01,690 And the result is very, very rich material that no one else could have accessed, except you. 348 00:46:01,690 --> 00:46:09,880 So sorry, I forgot to say that I don't want to pick up on something that you emphasised in the talk, 349 00:46:09,880 --> 00:46:16,720 and that is that the students were not expelled from Baghdad. 350 00:46:16,720 --> 00:46:25,300 They were not the victims of persecution or anti-Semitism emphasise this because one of the reviews says that there was a 351 00:46:25,300 --> 00:46:35,770 pogrom against the Jews and there wasn't a programme that in fact Iraq was the model of harmonious Muslim Jewish relations. 352 00:46:35,770 --> 00:46:49,000 My family enjoyed or benefited from the strong tradition of religious tolerance and good relations between Muslims, Christians and Jews in Iraq. 353 00:46:49,000 --> 00:46:56,090 The Jews were one of many minorities, unlike Europe, where the Jews were. 354 00:46:56,090 --> 00:46:59,920 And there was a Jewish problem. There wasn't a Jewish problem in Iraq. 355 00:46:59,920 --> 00:47:09,550 So what would you like to say a bit more against this notion? Well, the persecution in the talk, I mean, there is no such a thing. 356 00:47:09,550 --> 00:47:17,050 And I think the one, you know, there are two erroneous versions, one that they left because of cholera, 357 00:47:17,050 --> 00:47:21,010 which there was cholera, but they didn't leave the cause of cholera. 358 00:47:21,010 --> 00:47:29,530 And if you're leaving the conflict fleeing a country because of cholera, you don't take only one son and leave another three there. 359 00:47:29,530 --> 00:47:39,310 The second is the fact again, it was really targeted because of this conflict with the Wali, who was very corrupt. 360 00:47:39,310 --> 00:47:52,000 And before the wali, the father was the subgraph bashi or the tax collector on behalf of the Sultan in Baghdad, 361 00:47:52,000 --> 00:47:56,800 which is that was basically the finance minister in the province. 362 00:47:56,800 --> 00:48:08,500 So it was a very prominent. But when a corrupt wali came in, he needed to start to raise money for his own little army and, 363 00:48:08,500 --> 00:48:15,430 you know, adventures, which at the end afterwards, the sultan pushed him out. 364 00:48:15,430 --> 00:48:23,100 Are many biographies of Ashkenazi Jews and European and North American Jews. 365 00:48:23,100 --> 00:48:31,170 There are many autobiographies, but there are very few autobiographies of the founder of the Jews. 366 00:48:31,170 --> 00:48:38,130 And in this respect, your book was an eye-opener about the world of Sephardi Jews. 367 00:48:38,130 --> 00:48:45,270 There is a view of the dominant view of Jewish history that the lachrymose version of Jewish history, 368 00:48:45,270 --> 00:48:51,450 which is Jewish history, which consists of a never ending chain of discrimination, 369 00:48:51,450 --> 00:49:03,780 persecution, violence culminating in the Holocaust, and this version of history probably fits the history of the Jews in Europe. 370 00:49:03,780 --> 00:49:09,210 But it most certainly doesn't fit the history of the Jews in the Arab lands. 371 00:49:09,210 --> 00:49:17,220 Were you conscious of contribute to something which is relatively rare, which is about Iraqi troops? 372 00:49:17,220 --> 00:49:30,090 Well, I really didn't know because as I said, even the sons talked about feeling it because of, you know, anti-Jewish feelings in Baghdad. 373 00:49:30,090 --> 00:49:38,580 And it's only when I, you know, working through the Ottoman archives that it became clear and the correspondence, 374 00:49:38,580 --> 00:49:44,700 because at some point it was a report to the whole time that this is what happened. 375 00:49:44,700 --> 00:49:53,130 And, you know, two years later, actually the governor was deposed off of his place. 376 00:49:53,130 --> 00:50:01,680 I mean, I think it is very interesting and I talk about it in the aspect of anglicised nations in many ways. 377 00:50:01,680 --> 00:50:05,580 Also, the Baghdadi Jews, especially like the Sicilians, 378 00:50:05,580 --> 00:50:16,230 were better accepted in England than the Rothschilds, which is really interesting because for two reasons. 379 00:50:16,230 --> 00:50:27,540 One, I think that the Rothschilds were looked upon as nouveau riche, you know, the new wealth, and they should not be part of the aristocracy. 380 00:50:27,540 --> 00:50:36,670 And to all the prejudices of being in the banking and lending business, the systems were. 381 00:50:36,670 --> 00:50:40,570 Exactly the opposite, they were not in the money lending business, 382 00:50:40,570 --> 00:50:49,090 but also they were treated from the before as an aristocracy that they were aristocrats in the sense in Baghdad. 383 00:50:49,090 --> 00:50:54,470 I talked about it the other day and I mention, I think it's interesting. 384 00:50:54,470 --> 00:51:03,580 Usually you read stories of rags to riches. It's actually riches to rags, riches and then decline. 385 00:51:03,580 --> 00:51:08,080 It's almost four waves. Each one is very different. 386 00:51:08,080 --> 00:51:17,230 So there are really a lot of differences. Well, on the British Connexion, this is a really important dimension of the story. 387 00:51:17,230 --> 00:51:26,500 The British Connexion is relevant to the rise of the dynasty, the success of the dynasty and finally through the fall of the dynasty. 388 00:51:26,500 --> 00:51:38,950 So it's there all along in your book. And I would like I don't dwell on why the British Connexion was so important for the rise of this dynasty 389 00:51:38,950 --> 00:51:47,710 and to suggest that it is because the British in the Empire preferred minorities to the mainstream. 390 00:51:47,710 --> 00:51:58,530 Yeah. A number of reasons. One was education in Iraq, there was a very good Jewish educational system in Israel at Universal. 391 00:51:58,530 --> 00:52:01,590 My mother went to the school for girls. 392 00:52:01,590 --> 00:52:12,330 Everything was told through the medium of French and she came out everything that very good French, English, Arabic and Hebrew. 393 00:52:12,330 --> 00:52:15,360 So the Jews in Iraq knew languages, 394 00:52:15,360 --> 00:52:26,430 but also they were a minority and therefore less likely to be swayed by the currents of Arab nationalism and more dependent. 395 00:52:26,430 --> 00:52:32,160 So would you agree that this is part of the explanation of why this? 396 00:52:32,160 --> 00:52:41,670 Came about a hundred years before all Arabs. I mean, there were parts of the Ottoman Empire, and so that has to be taken in context. 397 00:52:41,670 --> 00:52:52,770 I think that definitely the identification also from their point of view, they arrived into, as I said, into a foreign land, into a foreign city. 398 00:52:52,770 --> 00:53:00,760 And so the immediate thing is to identify with the most powerful country in the world. 399 00:53:00,760 --> 00:53:11,860 And their interests were aligned. I mean, as I met, talked about it, there is the free trade policy, which was more an ideology rather than a policy. 400 00:53:11,860 --> 00:53:18,310 This expansion of global trade, everything kind of fitted with their interests. 401 00:53:18,310 --> 00:53:29,350 There was definitely an alignment, but also the feeling of, you know, the family identified with the most powerful power that existed. 402 00:53:29,350 --> 00:53:37,960 I think with the decline, it almost went to the extreme of desperately wanting to be part. 403 00:53:37,960 --> 00:53:44,530 And once they became part of the aristocracy, after all, they gained many titles. 404 00:53:44,530 --> 00:53:50,920 Some of them, you know, like Philip Sassoon, became undersecretary for the Air Force. 405 00:53:50,920 --> 00:53:55,630 He was the secretary of Lloyd George and then others. 406 00:53:55,630 --> 00:54:00,700 Another son from another brother became an MP. 407 00:54:00,700 --> 00:54:03,370 So you have these different things. 408 00:54:03,370 --> 00:54:12,850 And of course, intermarrying with the Rothschilds and Ginsberg and all these dynasties, they now entered a different world. 409 00:54:12,850 --> 00:54:17,830 I mean, if you take it to the extreme of the fourth generation, 410 00:54:17,830 --> 00:54:26,410 the generation of Siegfried Sassoon and Philip Sassoon, one person like Siegfried Sassoon never knew who was Jewish. 411 00:54:26,410 --> 00:54:34,390 And definitely, he didn't know that his father was born in India from a Baghdadi origin. 412 00:54:34,390 --> 00:54:44,020 Philip Sassoon didn't want to be identified, and when you went to visit as undersecretary for the Air Force Giraffe in 1920, 413 00:54:44,020 --> 00:54:52,810 he met with King Faisal, but didn't bother to meet with any one of the family that was there on and on. 414 00:54:52,810 --> 00:55:00,370 There was, by the 1930s, all kind of signals that on the coat of arms that I showed, 415 00:55:00,370 --> 00:55:05,860 they started erasing the Hebrew words because they wanted just the Latin. 416 00:55:05,860 --> 00:55:15,340 They started saying, when people ask them, they are originally from Toledo in Spain because Spain sounded nicer than Baghdad. 417 00:55:15,340 --> 00:55:26,110 Right? So I think it's really the first generation the Baghdadi Jewish context was so fundamental and critical to them. 418 00:55:26,110 --> 00:55:37,960 It was the exact opposite by the fourth generation. In the afterword, you reflect on the causes of the decline in the state, and just now, 419 00:55:37,960 --> 00:55:44,380 I need you to dwell on the fact that the most brilliant and emulated the upper 420 00:55:44,380 --> 00:55:51,040 classes and became a bit like them instead of being industrious and disciplined. 421 00:55:51,040 --> 00:55:56,410 They let the dissolute life of Asia. They became the FT. 422 00:55:56,410 --> 00:56:02,430 Another factor that you deal with is poor tax planning. 423 00:56:02,430 --> 00:56:07,990 If they all have, they had fabulous wealth and they all had wills. 424 00:56:07,990 --> 00:56:13,270 But some of these wills wounds were good and weren't very tax efficient. 425 00:56:13,270 --> 00:56:20,920 They were very generous. So in some of the wills, the list of beneficiaries was about four pages, 426 00:56:20,920 --> 00:56:30,400 which reminded me that in our community, where there is a wiggle there a lot of relatives. 427 00:56:30,400 --> 00:56:33,610 Yeah, I mean, there are really a number of factors. 428 00:56:33,610 --> 00:56:40,360 I actually also say that at the end of the day, taxation was not the main reason for their decline, 429 00:56:40,360 --> 00:56:49,450 but it definitely I think there was something fundamental that it's the planning at the beginning with trust didn't take place. 430 00:56:49,450 --> 00:56:55,540 Unlike, let's say, the rot job and each generation when the father died. 431 00:56:55,540 --> 00:57:00,150 And if you have six children and no one is working. 432 00:57:00,150 --> 00:57:12,000 Well, and as first, you're paying 50 percent and death duties, and then the other 50 percent is split amongst six or seven children. 433 00:57:12,000 --> 00:57:21,810 And since none of that was working, one can afford to buy these beautiful houses that they acquired in London and the estates. 434 00:57:21,810 --> 00:57:26,070 And it's really it's the absolute kind, you know, 435 00:57:26,070 --> 00:57:34,260 almost model of how wealth get dissipated each generation as a start spreading and becomes 436 00:57:34,260 --> 00:57:41,610 smaller and smaller units and each unit then in one more generation gets against it. 437 00:57:41,610 --> 00:57:48,900 And so us nothing. I mean, at some point they have these and I have in the book descriptions of some of the 438 00:57:48,900 --> 00:57:55,290 fancy houses that they had in London and in the country and even in Scotland. 439 00:57:55,290 --> 00:58:01,590 But none of them was left because each generation had to get rid of them, to sell, one, 440 00:58:01,590 --> 00:58:09,360 to pay for the taxes and to split it amongst a number of children or sometimes siblings. 441 00:58:09,360 --> 00:58:18,540 And that is not a good, a good way to maintain wealth. The students were also known as the Rothschilds of the East. 442 00:58:18,540 --> 00:58:24,180 And you compare them to another rich dynasty, the Canaries. 443 00:58:24,180 --> 00:58:31,220 And you have a passing comment to the Lehman Brothers in America. 444 00:58:31,220 --> 00:58:36,660 So this opens up the much bigger question, why the question and you don't have to answer. 445 00:58:36,660 --> 00:58:45,330 But was there anything in the Jewish makeup that explains the success of these penises? 446 00:58:45,330 --> 00:58:55,470 I don't know about that. I mean, I think it's a matter of I argue in the book, it's not only about, you know, being astute and a good trader, 447 00:58:55,470 --> 00:59:03,060 you have to be lucky to be in the right place at the right time and being in India the right time. 448 00:59:03,060 --> 00:59:11,190 It was all kind of factors that work to their, you know, the American Civil War comes in. 449 00:59:11,190 --> 00:59:18,330 As I explained and called on prices, quadruple opium becomes a legal commodity. 450 00:59:18,330 --> 00:59:26,490 The Suez Canal is opened and suddenly trade routes are cheaper and faster on and on. 451 00:59:26,490 --> 00:59:30,360 I mean, you have to know how to take advantage of it. 452 00:59:30,360 --> 00:59:37,230 And that's, you know what happened? They did. Thank you, Joseph, thank you. 453 00:59:37,230 --> 00:59:45,090 Time for a few questions from the audience here in Oxford and hopefully online to open up to the audience with Pfizer. 454 00:59:45,090 --> 00:59:54,240 Thank you very much. Obviously, we still trust this wonderful book because I saw and the two generations of my family, 455 00:59:54,240 --> 01:00:05,430 Bob have grown up hearing about interacting with some docs and hospitals library system in the state, which still bear their names that used to exist. 456 01:00:05,430 --> 01:00:10,080 So it's a very real living presence in that city. But apart from that, 457 01:00:10,080 --> 01:00:15,880 I had a couple of questions with so my first question has to do with your account of what the 458 01:00:15,880 --> 01:00:21,210 students brought with them from Baghdad that allowed them to assume their initial prominence. 459 01:00:21,210 --> 01:00:29,850 And you suggested that this was the reputation and the contacts they had through the Ottoman Empire and in the Persian Empire as well. 460 01:00:29,850 --> 01:00:37,230 So when they moved to India and then further eastwards, which in non ottoman lands without those contacts, 461 01:00:37,230 --> 01:00:45,450 do they continue that model of, if you will, networks and connexions that allow them to repeat their success? 462 01:00:45,450 --> 01:00:52,110 Or is there something new that happens? And do they become part of another kind of, if you will, economic logic? 463 01:00:52,110 --> 01:00:56,790 And the second question has to do with the reasons for the decline that you mentioned. 464 01:00:56,790 --> 01:00:58,560 And I take your point, 465 01:00:58,560 --> 01:01:07,950 but it also strikes me as equally important that these sort of family based firms tend not to survive more than a few generations. 466 01:01:07,950 --> 01:01:12,420 That's true of the big Indian Parsi Hindu-Muslim firms as well. 467 01:01:12,420 --> 01:01:16,770 And I've always been surprised by the fact that unlike in England or in America, 468 01:01:16,770 --> 01:01:25,890 they tend not to end up as joint stock companies and of the kind the East India Company was Lisa Cummins, arguably the first joint stock company. 469 01:01:25,890 --> 01:01:29,430 So there you have the model of modern capitalism. 470 01:01:29,430 --> 01:01:38,040 But interestingly, it is not taken up by vernacular capitalists, vernacular merchants until very recently and in India, 471 01:01:38,040 --> 01:01:42,960 even today, it's still family firms that last two or three or four generations, 472 01:01:42,960 --> 01:01:51,150 the Tatas are the only ones practically who have actually moved in the direction of corporate direction in that sense, which is not family control. 473 01:01:51,150 --> 01:01:58,390 So it's one that plays a role and attached to this question is one about loss of inheritance. 474 01:01:58,390 --> 01:02:03,540 So we know that with Indian mercantile families, including very big ones. 475 01:02:03,540 --> 01:02:14,730 It's the nature of the the law, as it was known or community specific law that determined the success or failure of the families concerned. 476 01:02:14,730 --> 01:02:20,820 So with Sharia, with the splitting up of the inheritance every generation, that was a major problem. 477 01:02:20,820 --> 01:02:25,740 And, you know, Muslim traders had to figure out how to circumvent it with the Hindu law. 478 01:02:25,740 --> 01:02:28,800 There's a joint family and how to deal with that. 479 01:02:28,800 --> 01:02:38,100 Was there something along these lines or what this assumes entirely eventually sort of removed from any kind of Jewish law when they say, 480 01:02:38,100 --> 01:02:42,140 moved to England? Thank you for these questions. 481 01:02:42,140 --> 01:02:49,940 Yes, the answer to the first question about her reputation conduct is absolutely and categorically yes. 482 01:02:49,940 --> 01:02:55,670 Even when they were dealing with totally new people and the archives has a lot, 483 01:02:55,670 --> 01:03:01,640 so I didn't realise, you know, in Carlton there was a lot of forgeries. 484 01:03:01,640 --> 01:03:06,860 Basically, people add water agents to the courtroom, 485 01:03:06,860 --> 01:03:17,210 so it spread when it arrives to the final destination and a few times the orders came back from a dollar. 486 01:03:17,210 --> 01:03:21,290 You know, forget it. Pay them back. Everything that they paid. 487 01:03:21,290 --> 01:03:28,730 It's not their fault because our reputation and we want to have this contract intact. 488 01:03:28,730 --> 01:03:29,870 And that really, 489 01:03:29,870 --> 01:03:40,670 really stayed until kind towards the end when when they stopped in this trading business in one of the things is they never made those contacts, 490 01:03:40,670 --> 01:03:47,660 you know, so that's why the incredible amount of trust become so critical. 491 01:03:47,660 --> 01:03:57,710 It's very interesting because by the 1860s 70s, a lot of the British firms, even before that, insisted on contract. 492 01:03:57,710 --> 01:04:06,860 This assumes never wanted to sign contracts because they really said it's our reputation and your reputation. 493 01:04:06,860 --> 01:04:16,310 That, to me, also was the most incredible thing is how in that world, without internet and without telegraph and without communication, 494 01:04:16,310 --> 01:04:24,500 people still knew, you know, who has a good reputation in Zanzibar and who does not have a reputation. 495 01:04:24,500 --> 01:04:29,420 And it just continued throughout that time. 496 01:04:29,420 --> 01:04:34,010 Question is much more complicated about the different generations. 497 01:04:34,010 --> 01:04:37,910 I think there are families that kept it going. 498 01:04:37,910 --> 01:04:49,370 The rules of inheritance, whether in India or Britain, was always the law of the land and not the religious law, unlike in Islamic countries. 499 01:04:49,370 --> 01:04:58,370 And I agree with you that in Islam, the inheritance that to really dissipation of wealth of creator results wealth. 500 01:04:58,370 --> 01:05:04,890 At some point in the 20th century, they began on a new trick which didn't work, 501 01:05:04,890 --> 01:05:12,140 but ended up being in court, and there is very interesting material on that of the court. 502 01:05:12,140 --> 01:05:20,870 They tried to claim that their residency was in India because they kept houses in India because I think 503 01:05:20,870 --> 01:05:29,600 at some point the death duties in the UK was about 60 percent in Britain and fifty five percent even. 504 01:05:29,600 --> 01:05:34,730 There was complaints in some of the things that £300000, 505 01:05:34,730 --> 01:05:45,580 which was a huge amount to the National Trust and was furious that even on that, you wasn't getting any exemption on that donation. 506 01:05:45,580 --> 01:05:49,900 I think it is harder to keep it after four or five generations. 507 01:05:49,900 --> 01:05:57,640 I mean, the Tatas are really exceptional. But there are more and more, maybe not in the huge wealth of, you know, 508 01:05:57,640 --> 01:06:05,560 the Rothschilds or the daughters, but there are quite a number who have managed to do it for Judah. 509 01:06:05,560 --> 01:06:13,540 It's a tough question, and it's really tough how to take it from one generation to another and keep it. 510 01:06:13,540 --> 01:06:20,920 Well, the question usually I'd like to pick up on one of the points that I've used to making in the course of doing the research for your book. 511 01:06:20,920 --> 01:06:27,400 You had some fantastic encounters. You got to meet some very, very interesting people are pursuing this story. 512 01:06:27,400 --> 01:06:33,220 And the one that struck me, Joseph, was when you went to Hong Kong to get access to the Canterbury archives. 513 01:06:33,220 --> 01:06:39,540 And so I'd like to bring the question back to the diaries, which are mentioned because there are still players. 514 01:06:39,540 --> 01:06:48,520 What has a sense of their position in Hong Kong suggest that families that they came after the system designed to stand, but they're still there. 515 01:06:48,520 --> 01:06:52,600 And so as one talks about the decline of the family like disappearance, 516 01:06:52,600 --> 01:06:57,910 are there lessons to be learnt from those that have managed to adapt and survive and thrive? 517 01:06:57,910 --> 01:07:01,870 Is there something about the experience, the casualties that you could bring into your analysis to? 518 01:07:01,870 --> 01:07:12,910 Yeah. I mean, their experience is fascinating, but not only that they came after and the founder worked at the Sicilians until he left. 519 01:07:12,910 --> 01:07:23,210 But more than that, when the last character he saw Sir Victor Sassoon in Shanghai, he left when World War Two broke out. 520 01:07:23,210 --> 01:07:30,040 And he also wasn't getting along with the Japanese, who invaded Shanghai in 1937, 521 01:07:30,040 --> 01:07:38,740 stayed behind and pretended he was going to be one of those peace mediator between the Japanese and the British. 522 01:07:38,740 --> 01:07:51,520 There is a lot about this in the book, but the most critical aspect he left before people were interned in Hong Kong and in Shanghai. 523 01:07:51,520 --> 01:08:02,260 The Canaries were interned for four years in a camp, first in Shanghai and then in Hong Kong, and lost everything. 524 01:08:02,260 --> 01:08:08,500 But in 1945, they started everything from scratch. 525 01:08:08,500 --> 01:08:13,630 And of course, they lost their assets in 49. You know, and in Shanghai. 526 01:08:13,630 --> 01:08:25,990 But the difference is is Victor Sassoon sold all the agencies against the advice of his right hand man and wanted to go to the Bahamas. 527 01:08:25,990 --> 01:08:31,540 And of course, you know, I don't need to tell anyone what happened to Hong Kong. 528 01:08:31,540 --> 01:08:40,630 If you had real estate and businesses and contacts in 1946 to roll it 50 years later, 529 01:08:40,630 --> 01:08:51,490 and that was a huge I think really what differentiates is the personalities and the inner person was interested in the family and the 530 01:08:51,490 --> 01:09:01,510 business and determined to create in one another who was a playboy who wanted just to run away and become an international figure. 531 01:09:01,510 --> 01:09:11,590 And when that didn't happen, he moved on to settle in the Bahamas and do horse racing, which he won the derby four times. 532 01:09:11,590 --> 01:09:17,710 But as I argue, he bet on the wrong horse at the time. 533 01:09:17,710 --> 01:09:23,900 Thank you, Joseph. Sadly, we've come to the end of our time for our session paper, but I thank you very much. 534 01:09:23,900 --> 01:09:33,910 I to not spit on your audience online. Finally, we invite you to join us next week where we will have a panel on the crisis in Syria. 535 01:09:33,910 --> 01:09:39,340 But I'd like you to please join me in thanking Abby for joining us, particularly for Joseph, 536 01:09:39,340 --> 01:09:44,560 such a wonderful lecture and been able to talk about his new book, which I encourage you. 537 01:09:44,560 --> 01:09:57,634 All of you have helped you on tax. Thank you very much.