In this, the quietly powerful third novel in C. P. Snow's Strangers and Brothers sequence, Lewis Eliot narrates the world of the great Anglo-Jewish banking dynasties between the two World Wars.

Drawn into the fold of one such family by his friendship with the son and heir, Charles March, Lewis observes the impact of the changing world on their closed and privileged circle. The forces of communism and fascism, the rise of Hitler and steady progress of the nation towards war are interwoven with domestic crises; Charles defects from his promising legal career in favour of medicine, his sister Kathrine falls in love with a gentile, and his uncle becomes incriminated in shady political deal-making, and the family slowly falls apart.

Told with the mixture of humanity and exactitude that is uniquely Snow's, The Conscience of the Rich painstakingly documents the swansong of the British upper-classes.