These are the big questions tackled by international bestselling and multi-award-winning Simon Sebag-Montefiore in his essential and spellbinding new book, The Cauldron: The Making of the Modern Middle East.
On 7 September in the first of a new series of book launches at JW3 Simon will be joined by journalist Josh Glancy for a fascinating evening discussing the book.
Simon Sebag Montefiore’s prize-winning books have been published in 48 languages. 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).
In 2025, he was awarded the Blue Metropolis Words to Change Prize (Canada) for “his body of work in humanity and history.’ 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.
Josh Glancy is associate editor and columnist at The Sunday Times. He’s also worked as Washington and New York correspondent and edited the paper’s News Review section. He writes a regular column about British Jewish life for the Jewish News.
