British writer and journalist Chaim Bermant traces the history of the legendary Jewish families who moved from the Continent to England at the end of the 18th century, who for two centuries determined financial policy and influenced events in all corners of the vast British Empire, and the rest of the world. With a skillful hand, Bermant draws the characters of enterprising businessmen who managed not only to amass huge fortunes, but also to make a significant contribution to the prosperity of their new homeland and the development of public freedoms in Great Britain and beyond. The stories from the lives of the Rothschilds, Goldsmids, Montefiores, Cohens and other Jewish families, related by ties of kinship, presented in the book, fully reveal to the reader how their exorbitant wealth, foresight and cohesion - and all this is seasoned with a good pinch of funny and reckless actions - allowed them to occupy an influential position in the state.