Most accounts of the Rolling Stones focus on the music, the drugs or the women. Loewenstein, the Anglo-Bavarian prince who ushered the band out of Britain in 1970 to avoid taxes, and was their financial manager for four decades, begins with himself. His account mixes tiresome namedropping (Princess Margaret tells a dreadful joke, which he repeats with awe) with fascinating anecdotes (as a seven-year-old boy he took one of the last flights out of wartime Paris; he discovered his parents' divorce through a classmate's Daily Express). Looking for a new project, Loewenstein sees the band in 1969 playing "rhythmic music with lyrics describing trite emotions". Deaf to their appeal, he is far better when he gets on to the rise of the meticulously planned, corporate-sponsored mega-tour, and the often fractious relationships within the group. His intriguing mix of high society, hard commerce and decadent rock'n'roll has a hint of the picaresque, and a more curious narrator than Loewenstein might have made this an essential tale of the 20th century's shifting sands, rather than an interesting footnote.