Simon Sebag Montefiore's book follows the human past through families, from the earliest times to our own. It opens on a beach 950,000 years ago, with the footsteps of one family. It then moves on to dynasties such as the Caesars, Medicis, Incas, Ottomans, Mughals, Habsburgs, Rothschilds, Churchills and Kennedys. Rulers, artists, scientists, prophets and charlatans fill its pages. As the book tells it, conflict, migration, disease, faith, medicine and technology all shape these lives across many centuries, continents and cultures.
Why You Should Read?
- Follow a single narrative of humankind that begins with one family's footsteps on an ancient beach.
- Meet lesser-known figures such as Hongwu, Kamehameha, Zenobia, Lady Murasaki and Sayyida al-Hurra, the Moroccan pirate-queen.
- Explore how, in the book's telling, plague, faith and invention are tied to the lives of individual people.
- Discover creative minds such as Socrates, Michelangelo, Shakespeare, Newton and Mozart beside rulers from Alexander the Great to Zelensky.
About the Author
Simon Sebag Montefiore is a British historian who also presents television and writes both history books and novels. He was born on 27 June 1965. His books include Jerusalem: The Biography (2011), The Romanovs: 1613–1918 (2016) and Stalin: The Court of the Red Tsar (2003). In 2026 Knopf published his history of the modern Near East, The Cauldron.
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