The Cauldron

The Making of the Middle East 1900 -2026

Simon Sebag Montefiore (author)

THE ESSENTIAL GUIDE TO THE MAKING OF TODAY'S MIDDLE EAST: A SPELLBINDING HISTORY FROM THE BESTSELLING, PRIZEWINNING HISTORIAN AND MASTER STORYTELLER

How did an elderly cleric overthrow the Shah of Iran and change the world?
Why did Bin Laden attack the USA - and why did the USA destroy Saddam?
How did one extraordinary prince create Saudi Arabia? How did an Ottoman general create Türkiye?
How did Britain and France carve up the Middle East - and why did the Kurds never get their own state?
Can there ever be peace between Israel and Palestine?

The Middle East has forever been the source of religions, prize of empires, spark-wheel of conflicts, well of radicalism and epicentre of our tumultuous world. No other region has such a hold on our imagination nor such a propensity to unleash mayhem. Yet few know its real history; fewer still understand its variety and cosmopolitanism, its complexity and interconnectedness. In The Cauldron, Simon Sebag Montefiore delivers a fresh and unique history of the entire region in all its diversity, from 1900 up to the present day. Taking the reader on a spectacular journey from the Ottoman sultanate to the Trump presidency, from Morocco to Iran, this is a dazzling panorama of faith and fanaticism, creativity and tolerance, dictatorship and democracy brought to life by an extraordinary cast of kings, warriors, poets, terrorists and peacemakers.

This is the essential story of how the Middle East of 1900 became the Middle East of today - and tomorrow.

Simon Sebag Montefiore is the internationally bestselling author of prize-winning history and novels. HIs books are now published in 48 languages.

His latest book is THE WORLD: A FAMILY HISTORY - a history of humanity, unlike any previous world history: it uses family, the one thing all humans have in common, to tell the story. It is genuinely global, spanning all eras and all continents, from the perspective of places as diverse as Haiti, Congo and Cambodia as well as Europe, China and America. From the stone age to the drone age, it features a cast of extraordinary span and diversity: as well as rulers and conquerors there are priests, prophets, charlatans, artists, scientists, doctors, tycoons, gangsters, rockstars, lovers, husbands, wives and children. All human drama is here - all the way to Putin and Zelensky. A dazzling achievement as spellbinding as fiction, The World is both a celebration and an indictment that takes the human story, in a single narrative by a master storyteller. 

• Publisher ‏ : ‎ Weidenfeld and Nicolson
• Publication date ‏ : ‎ Aug. 2026
• Print length ‏ : ‎ 528 pages
• ISBN13 ‏ : ‎ 9781399634892