Nine Dynastic Sagas That Consider the Architecture of Inherited Power
From the biblical tale of Cain and Abel to HBO’s Succession, family sagas centering on power and inheritance have always exercised a hold on the public imagination. There is something raunchy, dramatic and almost thrilling in witnessing the freewheeling fortune of a legendary family, idolizing the patriarchs, romanticizing the women and observing the scions, who stumble and more often than not self-destruct in the eye of the masses. Whether it’s the families embodying politics and prestige, such as the Kennedys, Windsors and the Gandhis, generational American billionaires like the Rothschilds and the DuPonts, or corporate empires selling taste like the Agnellis and the Hermès family, visceral impulses and unforgettable drama result when wealth and power are inextricably tied to bloodlines.
Far before the term “nepo baby” was coined or the Kardashians premiered on reality TV, tabloids, an entire literary shelf of memoirs and biographies and Graydon Carter’s Vanity Fair were devoted to narrating the lives of the rich, famous and trust funded (or those with Swiss bank accounts: take your pick). And yet, more than just money, these dynasties dictated fashion, taste and culture. The 1980s saw an excess of Gucci trademark handbags, the interlocking Gs in the logo signaling an almost tacky wealth, and the Medicis in medieval and Renaissance Italy commissioned enduring works of art like Botticelli’s The Birth of Venus and Donatello’s bronze statue of David, the decapitated head of Goliath lying at his feet.
Even within the realm of literature, the drama of lineage and succession remains timeless, ranging from Zeus overthrowing his father to Shakespeare’s plays about the Plantagenet battles for the throne of England. Classics like John Steinbeck’s East of Eden and William Faulkner’s Absalom, Absalom! spotlight power struggles around the primordial sense of belonging that can only be tied to one’s last name. It’s no surprise then that the dynastic wheel of fortune continues to fascinate with its twists and turns, particularly now when the 25 richest families in the world have amassed $2.9 trillion. The following books trace how the world’s most storied families, real and imagined, turned fortune into myth and, in some cases, myth into a battle of heirs.
