New Releases by Simon Sebag Montefiore

FULLY REVISED AND UPDATED FOR 2024 NATIONAL BESTSELLER • A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK • JEWISH BOOK COUNCIL BOOK OF THE YEAR "Spectacular. [Montefiore] really tells you what the life of the city has been like and why it means so much. You fall in love with the city. It’s a treasure. It’s a wonderful book." —Bill Clinton "Impossible to put down. . . . Vastly enjoyable." —The New York Times Book Review The history of Jerusalem is the story of the world: Jerusalem is the universal city, the capital of two peoples, the shrine of three faiths. The Holy City and Holy Land are the battlefields for today’s multifaceted conflicts and, for believers, the setting for Judgment Day and the Apocalypse. How did this small, remote town become the Holy City, the “center of the world” and now the key to peace in the Middle East? Why is the Holy Land so important not just to the region and its many new players, but to the wider world too? Drawing on new archives and a lifetime’s study, Montefiore reveals this ever-changing city and turbulent region through the wars, love affairs and revelations of the kings, empresses, amirs, sultans, caliphs, presidents, autocrats, imperialists and warlords, poets, prophets, saints and rabbis who created, destroyed, chronicled, and believed in Jerusalem and the Holy Land. A classic of modern literature, this is not only the epic story of 3,000 years of faith, slaughter, fanaticism, co-existence, power and myth, but also a freshly updated, carefully balanced history of the Middle East, from King David to the new powers of the twenty-first century, from the birth of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam to the Israel-Palestine conflict. This is how today’s Middle East was forged, how the Holy Land became sacred and how Jerusalem became Jerusalem—the only city that exists twice—in heaven and on earth. “Magnificent. . . . Montefiore barely misses a trick or a character intaking us through the city’s story with compelling, breathless tension.” —The Wall Street Journal

Apa yang membuat Stalin begitu hebat? Apa yang membentuk Stalin menjadi psikopat kejam, politikus ulung, pencipta Uni Soviet (USSR) yang mengungguli Churchill dan Roosevelt, yang mampu mengorganisasi Stalingrad serta menaklukkan Berlin dan mengalahkan Hitler? Jika ia konon absen dalam Revolusi 1917, lalu bagaimana ia bisa tampil begitu kuat dalam politik? Lahir dalam kemiskinan, terluka oleh asuhan tapi luar biasa dalam studi, sosok karismatik namun berbahaya ini semula dikagumi sebagai penyair romantis. Ia pun awalnya dididik menjadi pendeta. Namun kemudian, ia menemukan takdirnya sebagai revolusioner. Dalam warna-warni hidupnya, ia pernah mendalangi perampokan bank, pembajakan, pembakaran, dan pembunuhan. Sepak terjangnya pun terungkap sebagai pencinta ulung yang meninggalkan rentetan gundik dan anak-anak haram. Buku ini menggambarkan bagaimana dunia kriminal menjadi habitat alami Stalin serta bagaimana premanisme politik dan alam bandit Kaukasia—dikombinasikan dengan ideologi kejam—memungkinkan Stalin mendominasi Kremlin. Inilah kisah dramatis ihwal garis hidup bocah gelandangan yang ketika dewasa menjadi sosok sangat berpengaruh di dunia, kisah anak tukang sepatu Georgia yang jadi pemimpin besar Red Tsar. Melalui riset panjang terhadap arsip yang baru dibuka di Rusia dan Georgia, Stalin Muda adalah sebuah kronik revolusi sekaligus biografi mendalam tentang sang aktor pada masa mudanya.

L’histoire de Jérusalem est l’histoire du monde Jérusalem est la ville universelle, la capitale de deux peuples, le lieu saint de trois religions. Du roi David à Ben Gourion, de la naissance du judaïsme, du christianisme et de l’islam au conflit israélo-palestinien, voici l’histoire de Jérusalem, la cité universelle : trois mille ans de foi et de fanatisme, de conquête et d’occupation, de guerre et de coexistence entre diverses croyances. Simon Sebag Montefiore raconte les batailles, mais aussi les histoires d’amour et de haine des hommes et des femmes qui ont fait Jérusalem — soldats et prophètes, poètes et rois, courtisans et musiciens. Cette biographie unique en son genre fait revivre tous ceux qui ont édifié et détruit la ville et qui en ont fait le récit : citoyens ordinaires comme grandes figures historiques, de Salomon et Cléopâtre à Soliman le Magnifique ; d’Abraham à Jésus et Mahomet ; du monde ancien aux temps modernes de Flaubert, Chateaubriand, Raspoutine et Lawrence d’Arabie. Ce livre ambitieux et captivant, qui se fonde sur des archives inédites, regorge d’anecdotes et de détails passionnants. Il montre comment Jérusalem est devenue Jérusalem, la seule cité à la fois céleste et terrestre.

From the New York Times bestselling author of The Romanovs—and one of our pre-eminent historians—comes “a meticulously researched, authoritative biography” (The New York Times), the companion volume to the prize-winning Stalin, and essential reading for anyone interested in Russian history. This revelatory account unveils how Stalin became Stalin, examining his shadowy journey from obscurity to power—from master historian Simon Sebag Montefiore. Based on ten years of research, Young Stalin is a brilliant prehistory of the USSR, a chronicle of the Revolution, and an intimate biography. Montefiore tells the story of a charismatic, darkly turbulent boy born into poverty, scarred by his upbringing but possessed of unusual talents. Admired as a romantic poet and trained as a priest, he found his true mission as a murderous revolutionary. Here is the dramatic story of his friendships and hatreds, his many love affairs, his complicated relationship with the Tsarist secret police, and how he became the merciless politician who shaped the Soviet Empire in his own brutal image.

A history of one of Russia''s greatest leaders explores the life and career of Potemkin, lover of Catherine the Great and architect of Russian imperial power.

Philip Roth meets Evelyn Waugh in a blackly comic portrayal of prep-school adolescence. Motefiore creates a young anti-hero as hilarious as Just William, as monstrous as Stalin himself, whose rite of passage shows what happens when a game of power grows into a dangerous obsession.