Written in History: Letters that Changed the World

Simon Sebag Montefiore, Juliet Stevenson, Rupert Penry-Jones , Simon Russell-Beale

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Orion
15 March 2019

Diaries, letters & journals; Humanities; General & world history

WRITTEN IN HISTORY: LETTERS THAT CHANGED THE WORLD celebrates the letter in world history and personal life. Acclaimed historian Simon Sebag Montefiore selects letters that have changed the course of global events or touched a timeless emotion - whether passion, rage, humour - from ancient times to the twentieth century: some are noble and inspiring, some despicable and unsettling, some are exquisite works of literature, others brutal and coarse. From love letters to declarations of war, ranging from Elizabeth I to Stalin, Marcus Aurelius to Machiavelli, Oscar Wilde to Balzac, Rameses the Great to Gandhi, Montefiore explores the significance of each piece of correspondence and shows how letters can reveal the personalities of some of history's most fascinating figures, and in turn offer a unique perspective on the past and a relevance for today. These are letters everyone should read.

(p) Orion Publishing Group 2018

By: Simon Sebag Montefiore
Read by: Juliet Stevenson, Rupert Penry-Jones, Simon Russell-Beale, Simon Sebag Montefiore
Imprint: Orion
Country of Publication: United Kingdom
Edition: Unabridged edition
Dimensions: Height: 140mm, Width: 138mm, Spine: 16mm
Weight: 160g
ISBN: 9781409181194
ISBN 10: 1409181197
Publication Date: 15 March 2019
Audience: General/trade , ELT Advanced
Format: CD-Audio
Publisher's Status: Active

Simon Sebag Montefiore is a prizewinning historian whose bestselling books have been published in over forty-five languages. CATHERINE THE GREAT AND POTEMKIN was shortlisted for the Samuel Johnson Prize; STALIN: THE COURT OF THE RED TSAR won the History Book of the Year Prize at the British Book Awards; YOUNG STALIN won the Costa Biography Award, LA Times Biography Prize and Le Grand Prix de Biographie; JERUSALEM: THE BIOGRAPHY was a number one bestseller and won the Jewish Book Council's Book of the Year prize; THE ROMANOVS: 1613-1918 was an international bestseller and won the Lupicaia del Terriccio Book Prize. Montefiore is also the author of the acclaimed novels SASHENKA, RED SKY AT NOON and ONE NIGHT IN WINTER, which won the Paddy Power Political Fiction Book of the Year Award. He read history at Cambridge University where he received his PhD, and now lives in London with his wife, the novelist Santa Montefiore, and their two children

Reviews for Written in History: Letters that Changed the World

WRITTEN IN HISTORY is a search through the millennia, the result an astonishing array: all human life is here encapsulated, in just a few paragraphs or even just a sentence; all are surprising, and mostly unfamiliar...Everything here is a revelatory marvel, whether a hideous rant from the Marquis de Sade (1783), or the impassioned logic of religious tolerance from Babur to his son Hamayun (1529). Truly the spectrum of human belief and behaviour is revealed in this selection * THE ARTS DESK * Entertaining and enlightening . . . Some [letters] are truly revolutionary and visionary . . . Others are very personal . . . but all are fascinating, as are the compiler's comments on each letter, little gems of potted history in their own right * DAILY MAIL, History Books of the Year * Spicy, horrifying, passionate, shocking...and very moving. Fascinating! If you loved Ernst Gombrich's A LITTLE HISTORY OF THE WORLD and are in the mood for another global history from a different angle, this collection of historically significant letters through the ages compiled by Simon Sebag Montefiore might well hit the spot...he has distilled a few millennia of world history into 240 extremely un-boring pages * THE TIMES *