Author(s): Simon Sebag Montefiore

History | Palestine & Israel

The story of Jerusalem is the story of the world. Jerusalem is the universal city, the capital of two peoples, the shrine of three faiths; it is the site of Judgement Day and the battlefield of today's clash of civilisations. How did this small, remote town become the Holy City, the 'centre of the world' and now the key to peace in the Middle East? Drawing on new archives and a lifetime's study, Simon Sebag Montefiore reveals this ever-changing city through the wars, love affairs and revelations of the men and women - kings, empresses, prophets, poets, saints, conquerors and whores - who created, destroyed, chronicled and believed in Jerusalem. From King David to the twenty-first century, from the birth of Judaism, Christianity and Islam to the Israel-Palestine conflict, this is the epic history of 3,000 years of faith, slaughter, fanaticism and coexistence. This is how Jerusalem became Jerusalem, and the only city that exists twice: in heaven and on earth.

Review: Vast and dazzling . . . utterly compelling from start to finish - THE SUNDAY TIMES

A powerful achievement . . . at once a scholarly record and an exuberantly written popular tour de force - NEW YORK REVIEW OF BOOKS

Astoundingly ambitious and triumphantly epic - DAILY TELEGRAPH

Simon Sebag Montefiore's history of Jerusalem is a labour of love and scholarship ... he has a wonderful ear for the absurdities and adventurers of the past - INDEPENDENT

Author Biography: Simon Sebag Montefiore is the internationally bestselling author of prize-winning books that have been published in forty-eight languages. CATHERINE THE GREAT & POTEMKIN was shortlisted for the Samuel Johnson Prize; STALIN: THE COURT OF THE RED TSAR won History Book of the Year Prize at the British Book Awards; YOUNG STALIN won the Costa Biography Award, the LA Times Book Prize for Biography, the Kreisky Prize and the Grand Prix de la Biographie Politique; JERUSALEM: THE BIOGRAPHY won the JBC Book of the Year Prize and the Wenjin Book Prize in China; THE ROMANOVS: 1613-1918 won the Lupicaia del Terriccio Book Prize. He is the author of the Moscow Trilogy of novels: SASHENKA, RED SKY AT NOON and ONE NIGHT IN WINTER, which won the Political Fiction Book of the Year Award. He is also the author of WRITTEN IN HISTORY: LETTERS THAT CHANGED THE WORLD and VOICES OF HISTORY: SPEECHES THAT CHANGED THE WORLD.