Thoroughly updated and revised for 2024, JERUSALEM: THE BIOGRAPHY is the history of the Middle East through the lens of the Holy City and the Holy Land, from King David to the wars and chaos of today.
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 Judgement Day and the Apocalypse.
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? 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, conquerors and whores 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 players and powers of the twenty-first century, from the birth of Judaism, Christianity and Islam to the Israel-Palestine conflict and the mayhem of today.
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.
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A brilliant and balanced narrative that consistently views Jerusalem as the capital city of two peoples and three faiths * Eugene Rogan, Professor of Modern Middle Eastern History, Oxford University and author of The Arabs: A History * Astounding, ambitious and triumphantly epic -- Tom Holland * DAILY TELEGRAPH * Magisterial . . . Montefiore has been preparing all his life to write this particular book. He steers a clear path through the religious animosities and political intrigues, adopting a strikingly apolitical tone * The Economist * Excellent . . . It explains beautifully the competition for cramped real estate of the three monotheistic religions in this place that feels once again like the vexed navel of the world. It will make you appreciate the blessing and the curse of this city -- Matt Frei * GUARDIAN * Spectacular. Montefiore really tells you what the life of the city has been like and why it means to much to everyone . . . You fall in the love with the city and it breaks your heart that people can't make peace over it . . . It's a treasure. It's a wonderful book -- former President Bill Clinton * THE TODAY SHOW, NBC * An epic and utterly absorbing study of a city whose modern religious, political and ethnic rivalries can be understood only in the context of its preceding 3,000 years of history. Montefiore writes with tremendous verve, sensitivity to historical controversy and an exceptional eye for the entertaining detail -- Books of the Year * FINANCIAL TIMES * A wonderfully vibrant account . . . Balanced, fair and above all colourful, Montefiore's narrative does justice to every religious tradition and confirms his reputation as one of our finest popular historians -- Dominic Sandbrook, Books of the Year * SUNDAY TIMES * The must-read history . . . a master work -- David Sexton * EVENING STANDARD * Packed with fascinating and grisly detail, a gripping account of war, betrayal, rape, massacre, sadistic torture, fanaticism, feuds, corruption, hypocrisy and spirituality. Montefiore's narrative is remarkably objective. A reliable and compelling account -- Antony Beevor * GUARDIAN * Read the book from cover to cover. There is never a dull page -- Charles Moore * DAILY TELEGRAPH * Ambitious and arresting . . . A powerful achievement, erudite without pedantry, and intimate with the complex archaeology . . . at once a scholarly record and an exuberantly written popular tour de force -- Colin Thubron * NEW YORK REVIEW OF BOOKS * A fittingly vast and dazzling portrait of Jerusalem, utterly compelling from start to finish * SUNDAY TIMES * Outstanding, superbly objective, elegantly written and highly entertaining * MAIL ON SUNDAY * Simon Sebag Montefiore's history of Jerusalem is a labour of love and scholarship... a considerable achievement... he has a wonderful ear for the absurdities and adventurers of the past... totally gripping... vivid compelling, engaged, engrossing, knowledgeable * INDEPENDENT * Compelling and thought-provoking...Working on an immense chronological and thematic canvas Sebag Montefiore does his subject more than justice. He narrates the terrible history of Jerusalem vividly and graphically... fascinating but ghastly. * SUNDAY TELEGRAPH * It is a gripping read, told with verve and fluency, and explains why Jerusalem, like a living person, has touched the heart of so many cultures, East and West, for so long * THE TIMES * Never a dull moment * DAILY MAIL * Full of faith, power, slaughter and fanaticism; this is a unique chronicle, balanced and critical and wonderfully entertaining. * THE EXAMINER * This is a city that has survived Hell, and Montefiore takes you to the heart of it * NORTHERN ECHO * A brilliantly detailed history... as entertaining as it is erudite * TATLER * Anyone with an interest in history should read this, if only to be reminded of just how much history has rolled back and forth over this pile of stones between 1458 and today. In fact, when compared with the carnage visited on it by the Romans, Crusaders, Albanians and, in the 12th century, the teenage King of Norway, the last 100 years there have been relatively peaceful. * THE WORD MAGAZINE * A scintillating portrait of Jerusalem. Utterly compelling and a moving picture of the city which has one way or another affected civilisation for thousands of years. Sebag Montefiore has become one of the greatest historians of his generation. * DAILY EXPRESS * As entertaining as it is elucidating. It's a history that is sharply paced as a novel and fairly brims over with sparkling writing * SUNDAY BUSINESS POST * Heterogenous, sprawling, erudite and touched by genius * CATHOLIC HERALD * Jerusalem: The Biography reads like a novel, it moves at a blistering pace ... It opens like a movie, stories of gore, and death and destruction * Nick Ferrari, LBC Radio * For any strident virtue-signallers who think the issues in the Middle East can be reduced to a slogan or easy labels, a definitive, apolitical, mesmerising account of the most invaded and occupied city on Earth and the carnage that built today's headlines. -- Jeremy Isaacs * THE WEEK *
Simon Sebag Montefiore is an internationally bestselling author and historian whose prize-winning books have been published in forty-eight languages. Catherine the Great and Potemkin was shortlisted for the Samuel Johnson Prize. Stalin: The Court of the Red Tsar won the British Book Awards History Book of the Year Prize. Young Stalin won the Costa Biography Award (UK), the LA Times Book Prize for Biography (USA), the Grand Prix de la Biographie Politique (France), and the Kreisky Prize (Austria). Jerusalem: The Biography - A History of the Middle East was a number one Sunday Times (UK) bestseller, a global bestseller and won The Book of the Year Prize from the Jewish Book Council (US) and the Wenjin Book Prize of the National Library of China (People's Republic of China). The Romanovs: 1613-1918 won the Lupicaia del Terriccio Book Prize (Italy); and The World: A Family History, a NYTimes and Sunday Times bestseller, was named The Times History Book of the Year. In 2025, he was awarded the Blue Metropolis Words to Change Prize (Canada) for "his body of work in humanity and history.' He is also the author of the Moscow Trilogy of novels: Sashenka, Red Sky at Noon and One Night in Winter, which won the Paddy Power Political Novel of the Year Prize. He read history at Gonville & Caius College, Cambridge University where he received his PhD. He is the presenter of five history series for the BBC and many of his books are being developed for movies or drama series.
