Absorbing and compulsive, The Women of Rothschild gives voice to the complicated, privileged and gifted women whose vision and tenacity shaped history.

The story of the family who rose from the Frankfurt ghetto to become synonymous with wealth and power has been much mythologised. Yet half the Rothschilds, the women, remain virtually unknown.

Natalie Livingstone follows the extraordinary lives of the English branch of the Rothschild women from the dawn of the 19th century to the early years of the 21st.

As Jews in a Christian society and women in a deeply patriarchal family, they were outsiders. Determined to challenge and subvert expectations, they supported each other, building on the legacies of their mothers and aunts. They became influential hostesses and talented diplomats, choreographing electoral campaigns, advising prime ministers, advocating for social reform and trading on the stock exchange. Misfits and conformists, conservatives and idealists, they mixed with Rossini and Mendelssohn, Disraeli, Gladstone and Chaim Weizmann, amphetamine-dealers, temperance campaigners, Queen Victoria and Albert Einstein. They broke code, played a pioneering role in the environmental movement, scandalised the world of women's tennis by introducing the overarm serve and drag-raced with Miles Davies in Manhattan.