Jerusalem

A fully updated edition of the million-copy-selling SUNDAY TIMES No.1.

A brilliant and balanced narrative that consistently views Jerusalem as the capital city of two peoples and three faiths

Astounding, ambitious and triumphantly epic

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

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

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

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

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

The must-read history . . . a master work

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

Read the book from cover to cover. There is never a dull page

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

A fittingly vast and dazzling portrait of Jerusalem, utterly compelling from start to finish

Outstanding, superbly objective, elegantly written and highly entertaining

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

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.

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

Never a dull moment

Full of faith, power, slaughter and fanaticism; this is a unique chronicle, balanced and critical and wonderfully entertaining.

This is a city that has survived Hell, and Montefiore takes you to the heart of it

A brilliantly detailed history... as entertaining as it is erudite

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.

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.

As entertaining as it is elucidating. It's a history that is sharply paced as a novel and fairly brims over with sparkling writing

Heterogenous, sprawling, erudite and touched by genius

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

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.

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.