10 Books to Help You Build Your Dynasty
Our top recommendations...
Our mission at INVICTUS is to help you learn from the great figures of the past so that you can, among other things, raise virtuous children and enjoy the fruits of a flourishing family. To this end, we’ve covered everything from Tolkien’s marriage advice to the Medici guide to raising children, and practical steps to freeing yourself from the 9-to-5.
But today, instead of studying one specific figure from history, I want to instead share a list of ten books that will help you in your quest to build your dynasty. If you’re anything like me, you don’t need an excuse to buy more books. But with Christmas around the corner, the excuses are plenty…
What follows, then, is a list of ten books that will make a perfect gift for you, your spouse, or anyone you know who is intentional about establishing a family name that lasts for generations. Lest you think this is a ploy for us to make money from affiliate links, none of the books listed here are linked to: I trust our readers are smart enough to copy and paste titles into Google search.
So, if you want to build your dynasty, these are the ten books I’d start with…
But first — we’re going to Italy!
This coming May, we’re hosting two exciting retreats to Bergamo and Venice. To learn more and apply to join us, click the button below:
Now, back to the article…
1) Nobility & Analogous Traditional Elites
I wrote extensively about this book in my article How to Become Noble, and it remains one of my favorite read of the past several years. In it, the philosopher Plinio Corrêa de Oliveira expounds on Pope Pius XII’s speeches to the Roman aristocracy in the years following World War II, providing a beautiful reflection on the role of nobility in the rapidly changing modern world.
The full title of the English version is Nobility and Analogous Traditional Elites in the Allocutions of Pius XII: A Theme Illuminating American Social History. For me, it helped identify the qualities that truly make one noble — if not in title, then at least in spirit:
Let the other classes be aware of the patrimony of virtues and gifts that are your own, the fruit of long family traditions: an imperturbable strength of soul, loyalty and devotion to the worthiest causes, tender and generous compassion toward the weak and the poor, a prudent and delicate manner in difficult and grave matters, and that personal prestige, almost hereditary in noble families, whereby one manages to persuade without oppressing, to sway without forcing, to conquer the minds of others, even adversaries and rivals, without humiliating them.
-Pope Pius XII to the Roman nobility, 9 January 1958
2) The Habsburg Way
A short and delightful read, The Habsburg Way outlines seven core principles that guided the Habsburg dynasty as they ruled over Europe for nearly a millennium, as well as how you can apply them to your life.
If you’d like to learn more about each of the seven rules Archduke Eduard outlines in his book before you buy it, you can click here to watch my full two-hour interview with him. I also highly recommend Eduard’s second book, Building a Wholesome Family in a Broken World, especially for those who are single, engaged, or otherwise in the beginning stages of building their family.
3) Leaving a Legacy
This book came out three weeks ago and quickly topped the charts on Amazon, becoming the number one new release in the categories of Wealth Management, Retirement Planning, Personal Finance, and Business Motivation. With good reason, I may add!
Kurtz’s book explores, among other things, how to raise children capable of stewarding great wealth; strong enough to avoid its temptations and prudent enough to deploy it wisely. I interviewed him about the advice he offers in his chapter “How to Raise Children Worthy of Empires”, which you can listen to here.
If you want to learn how to transform family routines into rituals, ensure that your children know their duties as well as privileges, and impress upon them your family’s identity, mission, and values, I can’t recommend Johann’s book enough.
4) Napoleon’s Library
Nicholas Sarkozy’s Napoleon’s Library: The Emperor, His Books and Their Influence on the Napoleonic Era is a fascinating dive into the intellectual life of the French emperor.
To give just one example of Napoleon’s Napoleon’s voracious reading habits, for the expedition to Egypt the French playwright Antoine-Vincent Arnault was tasked with collecting “plays from the Greeks, the Iliad, Odyssey, Shakespeare, Rabelais, Montaigne, Rousseau, and the elite of our moralists and novelists.” Works by Caesar, Tacitus, Plutarch, Livy, and Thucydides also accompanied the Emperor to Egypt, as did classic poems and plays by Homer, Ariosto, Tasso, Ossian, Virgil, Racine, and Molière.
If you want inspiration for what to include on your children’s (or your own!) reading list, Napoleon’s Library is a great place to start.
5) Dressing the Man
We have previously written about why what you wear matters, as well as shared practical tips on how to dress with timeless style. But if you want to dive even deeper into the topic, look no further than Alan Flusser’s Dressing the Man, the “Bible” of classic menswear.
As the title suggests, the advice is geared towards men only, though many members of the fairer sex have benefitted by gifting it to their significant other. Personally, I believe that it is our duty to teach our children to dress well, especially if we believe in passing down traditional values and decorum. For that reason alone, I heartily recommend it to anyone who is intent on establishing their dynasty…
Keep reading with a 7-day free trial
Subscribe to INVICTUS to keep reading this post and get 7 days of free access to the full post archives.