Written in History: Letters that Changed the World (Hardback)

Simon Sebag Montefiore (author)

£14.99

Hardback 272 Pages / Published: 04/10/2018

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Synopsis Author

Written in History celebrates the great letters of world history, creative culture and personal life.

Acclaimed historian Simon Sebag Montefiore selects over one hundred letters from ancient times to the twenty-first century: some are noble and inspiring, some despicable and unsettling; some are exquisite works of literature, others brutal, coarse and frankly outrageous; many are erotic, others heartbreaking.

The writers vary from Elizabeth I, Rameses the Great and Leonard Cohen to Emmeline Pankhurst, Mandela, Stalin, Michelangelo, Suleiman the Magnificent and unknown people in extraordinary circumstances - from love letters to calls for liberation, declarations of war to reflections on death.

In the colourful, accessible style of a master storyteller, Montefiore shows why these letters are essential reading: how they enlighten our past, enrich the way we live now - and illuminate tomorrow.

Publisher: Orion Publishing Co
ISBN: 9781474609180
Number of pages: 272
Weight: 393 g
Dimensions: 224 x 140 x 28 mm

MEDIA REVIEWS

'If you loved Ernst Gombrich's A Little History of the World and are in the mood for another potted global history from a different angle, this collection of historically significant letters through the ages compiled by Simon Sebag Montefiore might well hit the spot ... he has distilled a few millennia of world history into 240 extremely un-boring pages ... Sebag Montefiore has an eye for the spicy, the horrifying, the passionate and the shocking ... very moving.' - Ysenda Maxtone Graham, The Times

'Written in History is a search through the millennia, the result an astonishing array: all human life is here encapsulated, in just a few paragraphs or even just a sentence; all are surprising, and mostly unfamiliar ... Everything here is a revelatory marvel, whether a hideous rant from the Marquis de Sade (1783), or the impassioned logic of religious tolerance from Babur to his son Hamayun (1529). Truly the spectrum of human belief and behaviour is revealed in this selection.' - Marina Vaizey, The Arts Desk

Simon Sebag Montefiore

From warring dynasties to royal rabbits, Simon Sebag Montefiore has many strings to his literary bow. A historian, journalist, presenter, biographer and novelist he is best known for his contributions to history including Catherine the Great and Potemkin and Jerusalem: the Biography as well as two biographies of Stalin: Stalin: The Court of the Red Tsar and Young Stalin (which won the Costa Biography Award). He is also the author of the acclaimed Moscow Trilogy of novels Sashenka, One Night in Winter and Red Sky at Noon as well as The Royal Rabbits of London in collaboration with his wife, the author Santa Montefiore.