The Cauldron by Simon Sebag Montefiore

The Cauldron: The Making of the Modern Middle East by Simon Sebag Montefiore — a sweeping history from 1900 to the present by the New York Times bestselling author of Jerusalem and The Romanovs.

Few regions hold such a grip on the world’s attention. Fewer still are understood in their full variety — the mix of faith and fanaticism, creativity and intolerance, dictatorship and democracy that stretches from Morocco to Iran.

Montefiore tells that story across more than a century: the last years of the Ottoman Empire, the age of British and French mandates, the rise of independent states, oil and the Cold War, and the era that followed the Iranian Revolution of 1979. The cast includes sultans and pashas, kings and revolutionaries, poets and peacemakers, warriors and terrorists.

Written in the vivid, character-driven style that made Jerusalem a bestseller, The Cauldron is designed as an essential guide to how the Middle East of 1900 became the Middle East of today — and what that history means for tomorrow.

Ambitious in scale, rich in personality, and aimed at bot