In this accessible and readable book, Mark Häberlein seeks to rescue the Fuggers—the Augsburg banking family best known to English readers for their ties to the Habsburg family—from the intentions of earlier scholars who have seen the Fuggers as forerunners of modern captains of industry, or, as in the work of Götz von Pölnitz (Die Fugger, 1998), have viewed Jakob and his heirs as representatives of a national spirit foreign to the true nature of the German lands and character. Drawing on his earlier studies on urban elites, Häberlein succeeds admirably in this endeavor, using the notion of the pursuit of wealth and honor (inspired by Pierre Bourdieu) to see the Fuggers not so much as romantic individuals but rather as members of a social group that sought to meet the expectations of their milieu and, in so doing, internalized these practices into their own sense of themselves and their self-presentation. Häberlein achieves this goal by focusing on a broad time period (covering some 300 years of history), by considering the European scale of the family's enterprises (integrating the family's business activities into broader economic and political developments), and by examining all the members of the Fugger empire (including women and firm employees). Most significant, Häberlein shows how the Fuggers sought to square the circle and justify the seemingly base pursuit of wealth by maintaining that acquiring wealth was a noble pursuit in its own right, and that, moreover, it enabled the firm and the family to patronize the arts and promote the general good, which further underscored their value and place in early modern society.

Häberlein divides the work into two main parts, the first consisting of five chapters in which he traces the firm's development from 1485 to 1680. Especially enlightening is his handling of the Fuggers' mining interests; their shifting interests in Tyrol and Slovakia and later involvement in Spain; their loans and gifts to the Habsburgs; and the careers of factors and other employees who traveled across Europe in service to the family. In the book's last three chapters, Häberlein devotes himself to the patronage and self-display that stood out to contemporaries, who, like Michel de Montaigne, noted that the family's splendor contributed “towards the further embellishment of the city [of Augsburg], which is grateful to them for it” (149). The art, architecture, music, and book collections fostered by the family should not, Häberlein argues, be seen in isolation from the Fugger's economic activities. Instead, the Fugger houses in Augsburg served as a representation of the family; the burial chapel at St. Anna demonstrated power and piety; the housing project for the poor known as the Fuggerei made visible to all the family's charitable activities; the patronage of painters and musicians showed the family's discerning tastes and resulted in portraits that resembled closely the images of the family's main client and patron, Emperor Charles V. Family members belonged to some of the largest book collectors in Europe, and in investing in books the Fuggers translated economic into social and cultural capital. Finally, Häberlein argues that the family's acquisition of large tracts of land and service at court, in the military, and in the church were not signs of decline (as others have argued), but instead a logical extension of the family's search for honor and wealth against the backdrop of state formation and confessionalization.

Häberlein rescues the Fuggers from the historiography of the nineteenth century, but the shadow of scholars such as Götz von Pölnitz looms large, as Häberlein attempts a “new narrative” as compared to “older histories,” one that sees the Fuggers as something different than what had been portrayed previously: not the work of great men, not the story of decline after 1560, and not the linear and straightforward rise of an urban bourgeoisie into the imperial nobility. In tracing the family's fortunes in the context of the period, Häberlein provides key insights into the particularities of the firm and its owners' relationship with expanding markets, their pursuit of honor through good works, and their vast network of agents and factors involved on the family's behalf. What we gain in detail we lose in the sweeping scope of interpretation. This lack might leave those readers unfamiliar with the family's history (and its subsequent depiction in nationalist histories) slightly at sea as they navigate the meticulously crafted detail of the firm's fortunes. Despite this, and, in fact, because of its rich detail, this book is a welcome addition to English-language studies of early modern Germany, to the history of this period in Europe as a whole.