Simon Sebag Montefiore Keynote Speaker

Simon Sebag Montefiore is an award-winning and internationally known best-selling author and broadcaster.

Simon’s books are published in over 40 languages. Catherine the Great & Potemkin (2011) was short-listed for the Samuel Johnson, Duff Cooper, and Marsh Biography Prizes. Stalin: The Court of the Red Tsar (2007) won the History Book of the Year Prize at the British Book Awards. Young Stalin (Phoenix, 2008) won the Costa Biography Award (UK), the LA Times Book Prize for Biography (US), Le Grand Prix de la Biographie Politique (France) and the Kreisky Prize for Political Literature (Austria).

“Jerusalem: The Biography” (2011) was also critically well-received, winning Jewish Book of the Year Prize in the USA and becoming the Sunday Times number one non-fiction best-seller in Britain. It takes the history of the city from its beginnings as a fortified village through every conquest or occupation – Babylonian, Persian, Macedonian, Roman, Byzantine, Crusader, Ottoman, British and finally Israeli. Simon’s book, packed with fascinating and often grisly detail, is a gripping account of war, betrayal, looting, massacre, sadistic torture, fanaticism, feuds, persecution, corruption, hypocrisy and spirituality. He is also the author of Titans of History, a survey of key figures of politics, war and culture – an updated edition was published in 2017.

His book  “The Romanovs: Rise & Fall 1613-1917“, was published in 2016. His latest book, The World: A Family History was published by Orion in 2022.