The Nobel Family

Swedish Geniuses in Tsarist Russia

The Nobel Family cover

The Nobel Family

Swedish Geniuses in Tsarist Russia

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Description

THE FINANCIAL TIMES BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR

This absorbing collective biography of the genius Nobel family reveals how the Nobels' business and personal lives were fundamentally intertwined with the histories of Sweden and Russia, as well as the economic and entrepreneurial development of Europe in the long 19th century.

The name Nobel is mainly associated with the Nobel prize. However, Alfred Nobel was only one of a family of conspicuously gifted individuals. The Nobels, who moved from Sweden to Russia in the 1830s, ran one of Russia's biggest machine factories and founded the Russian oil industry. Using thousands of Nobel family letters and other documents shared here for the first time, Bengt Jangfeldt provides a fascinating and authoritative multi-generational chronicle charting the family exploits. The author describes how the father, Immanuel Nobel, a polymath architect, inventor, and engineer set the family on a path to financial success amidst a backdrop of imperial Russian industrial growth. He tells the story of how Immanuel's sons, Robert and Ludvig, and his grandson, Emanuel, developed the family business into a powerful industrial empire with a progressive agenda in the fields of worker's welfare, profit-sharing and charity. When the Revolution struck in 1917, the family's industrial empire as well as their huge personal wealth were swept away in one go. As a result they had to flee the country where they had been active for 80 years and return to Sweden.

During a time of immense change in Russia and right across Europe, the story of the Nobels stands out as one of both brilliance and resilience, with family firmly at its heart.

Table of Contents

Foreword
Part 1
1. Immanuel
2. Immanuel Nobel & Sons
3. Immanuel and Andriette
Part 2
4. Ludvig
5. Robert
6. Robert & Ludvig
7. The Nobel Brothers
8. The End of an Epoch
Part 3
9. The Third Generation
10. Emanuel
11. The Age of Greatness
12. Welfare and Charity
13. Political Unrest, Economic Growth and War
14. Anno 1917
Part 4
Postscript
Afterword
Family Tree
Picture Credits
Notes
Bibliography
Index

Product details

Published Sep 21 2023
Format Hardback
Edition 1st
Extent 424
ISBN 9781350348912
Imprint Bloomsbury Academic
Illustrations 88 bw illus and 10 colour illus
Dimensions 9 x 6 inches
Publisher Bloomsbury Publishing

About the contributors

Author

Bengt Jangfeldt

Bengt Jangfeldt is an author and historian. His bi…

Translator

Harry D. Watson

Harry D. Watson is a graduate in Scandinavian Stud…

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