TITANS OF HISTORY
SIMON SEBAG MONTEFIORE
With John Bew, Martyn Frampton,
Dan Jones and Claudia Renton
New York • London
© 2012 by Simon Sebag Montefiore
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Simon Sebag Montefiore was born in 1965 and read history at Gonville & Caius College, Cambridge University. Catherine the Great & Potemkin was shortlisted for the Samuel Johnson, Duff Cooper and Marsh Biography Prizes. Stalin: The Court of the Red Tsar won the History Book of the Year Prize at the British Book Awards. Young Stalin won the Costa Biography Award (UK), the LA Times Book Prize for Biography (US), Le Grand Prix de la Biographie Politique (France) and the Kreisky Prize for Political Literature (Austria). Montefiore’s books are published in 40 languages. His latest book is Jerusalem: The Biography. He is also the author of the novel Sashenka. A Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and Visiting Professor at Buckingham University, he lives in London with his wife, the novelist Santa Montefiore, and their two children. He is the presenter of the BBC TV series, Jerusalem: the Making of a Holy City. For more information or to contact the author, see www.simonsebagmontefiore.com or follow him on Twitter @simonmontefiore
John Bew is Harris Fellow in Modern British History and Director of Studies at Peterhouse, Cambridge. His biography of Lord Castlereagh, Enlightenment, War and Tyranny, was published in 2011.
Martyn Frampton is Lecturer in Modern/Contemporary History at Queen Mary, University of London. His publications include The Long March (2009) and Legion of the Rearguard (2010)
Dan Jones is a journalist and historian. He is the author of Summer of Blood (2009) and The Plantagenets (2012).
Claudia Renton is a writer and actress who has appeared on stage with the RSC and at the Royal National Theatre, and on television for the BBC and ITV.
TO MY DARLING CHILDREN LILY AND SASHA
Contents
INTRODUCTION
RAMESES THE GREAT
DAVID & SOLOMON
NEBUCHADNEZZAR II
CYRUS THE GREAT
THE BUDDHA
CONFUCIUS
SUN TZU
LEONIDAS
HERODOTUS
ALCIBIADES
PLATO
ARISTOTLE
ALEXANDER THE GREAT
QIN SHI HUANGDI
HANNIBAL
JUDAH THE MACCABEE AND HIS BROTHERS
CICERO
CAESAR
HEROD THE GREAT
CLEOPATRA
AUGUSTUS & LIVIA
JESUS
CALIGULA
NERO
MARCUS AURELIUS
COMMODUS
CONSTANTINE THE GREAT
ATTILA THE HUN
MUHAMMAD
MUAWIYA & ABD AL-MALIK
ZHAO WU
CHARLEMAGNE
HAROUN AL-RASHID
MAROZIA AND THE PAPAL PORNOCRACY
BASIL THE BULGAR SLAYER
HASSAN AL-SABBAH AND THE ASSASSINS
GODFREY OF BOUILLON & THE CRUSADER KINGS OF JERUSALEM
ELEANOR OF AQUITAINE
SALADIN
RICHARD THE LIONHEART & JOHN SOFTSWORD
GENGHIS KHAN
FREDERICK II OF HOHENSTAUFEN
ISABELLA & ROGER MORTIMER
EDWARD III & THE BLACK PRINCE
TAMERLANE
RICHARD II
HENRY V
GILLES DE RAIS
JOAN OF ARC
TORQUEMADA
VLAD THE IMPALER
RICHARD III
SAVONAROLA
ISABELLA & FERDINAND
COLUMBUS
SELIM THE GRIM
PIZARRO
BARBAROSSA & SILVER ARM
THE BORGIAS: POPE ALEXANDER VI AND HIS CHILDREN CESARE AND LUCREZIA
MAGELLAN
BABUR
CORTÉS
HENRY VIII
SULEIMAN THE MAGNIFICENT
IVAN THE TERRIBLE
ELIZABETH I
AKBAR THE GREAT
TOKUGAWA IEYASU
GALILEO
SHAKESPEARE
ABBAS THE GREAT
WALLENSTEIN
CROMWELL
AURANGZEB
PEPYS
LOUIS XIV
NEWTON
MARLBOROUGH
PETER THE GREAT
NADER SHAH
VOLTAIRE
SAMUEL JOHNSON
FREDERICK THE GREAT
CASANOVA
CAPTAIN COOK
CATHERINE THE GREAT
POTEMKIN
WASHINGTON
JEFFERSON
TOUSSAINT LOUVERTURE
TALLEYRAND
MOZART
ROBESPIERRE
NELSON
WELLINGTON
NAPOLEON I
BEETHOVEN
JANE AUSTEN
SHAKA
BYRON
BALZAC
PUSHKIN
ALEXANDRE DUMAS PÈRE & FILS
DISRAELI
GARIBALDI
NAPOLEON III
LINCOLN
JACK THE RIPPER
DARWIN
DICKENS
BISMARCK
FLORENCE NIGHTINGALE
PASTEUR
FRANCISCO LÓPEZ & ELIZA LYNCH
TOLSTOY
CIXI
LEOPOLD II
TCHAIKOVSKY
CLEMENCEAU
SARAH BERNHARDT
MAUPASSANT
OSCAR WILDE
WILHELM II
LLOYD GEORGE
TOULOUSE-LAUTREC
RASPUTIN
GANDHI
TRUJILLO
LENIN
UNGERN VON STERNBERG
PROUST
SHACKLETON, SCOTT & AMUNSDEN
CHURCHILL
IBN SAUD
VILLA & ZAPATA
STALIN
EINSTEIN
ENVER, TALAT & JEMAL: THE THREE PASHAS
ATATÜRK
PICASSO
ROOSEVELT
MUSSOLINI
TOJO
BEN-GURION
HITLER
NEHRU
BULGAKOV
FRANCO
MAO ZEDONG
ISAAC BABEL
YEZHOV
ZHUKOV
CAPONE
BERIA
HEMINGWAY
HIMMLER & HEYDRICH
KHOMEINI
ORWELL
DENG XIAOPING
DUVALIER
SCHINDLER
HOXHA OF ALBANIA
KIM IL SUNG & KIM JONG IL
ODETTE SANSOM
JFK
NASSER, SADAT, MUBARAK
THE CEAUŞESCUS OF ROMANIA
MANDELA
THE SHAH OF IRAN
JOHN PAUL II
SAKHAROV
NGUEMA
POL POT
IDI AMIN
THATCHER
ANNE FRANK
GORBACHEV & YELTSIN
ELVIS
SADDAM HUSSEIN
KADAFFI
MUHAMMAD ALI
AUNG SAN SUU KYI
ESCOBAR
OSAMA BIN LADEN
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Thank you to David North, Mark Smith, Patrick Carpenter and my editor, Josh Ireland, at Quercus; to my fellow contributors Dan Jones, Claudia Renton, John Bew and Martyn Frampton, all gifted historians; my agent Georgina Capel, Anthony Cheetham, Slav Todorov, Richard Milbank, Mark Hawkins-Dady; Professor F. M. Eloischari; Robert Hardman, Jonathan Foreman. And, above all, my darling children Lily and Sasha and my wife Santa.