I WAS interested to be asked to review this book for the Church Times, since I wondered about its relevance to the life of the Church and theology. Having read it, I recommend it as a case study in the relationship between good and evil, and how complicated it is. In addition, the effects of the lives of this extraordinary family, their inventions, and their philanthropy are still very much with us. This account of them and their achievements makes for a fascinating read.
Like many people’s, my general knowledge extended to an awareness that Alfred Nobel invented dynamite — a hugely more powerful explosive than its predecessor, gunpowder — and used the money that he left to endow the Nobel Prize. What I did not know was that Alfred had two equally gifted brothers, Robert and Ludvig, and that all three, together with their father, Immanuel, were famous during their lives.
Immanuel was a genius who developed underwater mines, steam engines, and plywood, among other things. None of them paid sufficiently, and he was declared bankrupt more than once. This is why he ended up emigrating to St Petersburg, where he also ran into financial difficulties.
The author tells us that he was good-natured and generous, but goes on to comment that “at the same time he was choleric, moody, impetuous, unwilling to compromise, touchy and hyperactive. Today his nature would surely have been described with a string of letters.”
AlamyAlfred Nobel, in a portrait by Gösta Florman, date unknown (digitally restored and retouched)
While Immanuel’s sons Robert and Alfred involved themselves in the invention and production of arms, Ludvig was influential in the development of the oil industry in Baku, in the oldest oil-producing region in the world, then part of the Russian Empire. When he died, in 1889 (leaving what would be worth about £80 million today), the Nobel Brothers Oil Company donated money for a prize and a medal in his memory.
Alfred was the only brother who did not marry; correspondence leads the author to suggest that it was because he contracted syphilis when a young man. Whatever the reason, when he died, in 1896, at the age of 63, he left the bulk of his fortune — about £100 million in today’s money — for the establishment of the Nobel Prize. His will, disputed for a while, was finally approved in 1900.
The book goes on to trace the fortunes of the next generation of this remarkable family through the First World War and the Bolshevik Revolution, which led to them to abandon their base in Russia and return to Sweden.
The book is informative and engaging and, as I suggest above, a good case study on the complex relationship between good and ill in our lives and legacies. I recommend it.
Dr John Inge is the Bishop of Worcester.
The Nobel Family: Swedish geniuses in Tsarist Russia
Bengt Jangfeldt
Harry D. Watson, translator
Bloomsbury £25
(978-1-350-34891-2)
Church Times Bookshop £22.50