The Jewish Economic Elite: Making Modern Europe

In this rich transnational history, Cornelia Aust traces Jewish Ashkenazi families as they moved across Europe and established new commercial and entrepreneurial networks as they went. Aust balances economic history with elaborate discussions of Jewish marriage patterns, women's economic activity, and intimate family life. Following their travels from Amsterdam to Warsaw, Aust opens a multifaceted window into the lives, relationships, and changing conditions of economic activity of a new Jewish mercantile elite.
Reviews:
“Cornelia Aust has written an extremely important and innovative book which promises to make a major contribution to our understanding of the history of the Jews in modern Europe. She succeeds in presenting not only the broad structures of family and business networks, but also the fascinating human stories of those who constituted them.”
— Adam Teller, author of, Money, Power, and Influence in Eighteenth-Century Lithuania
“The importance of Cornelia Aust's work goes beyond regional history and fits beautifully into transnational and interregional models that are so appropriate to the topic of Jewish economic history. She provides an understanding of how Jewish merchants could prove so vital to both the feudal and emerging capitalist economics of Eastern and East Central Europe through original research and mastery of all the relevant literature.”
— Jonathan Karp, author of, The Politics of Jewish Commerce: Economic Thought and Emancipation in Europe