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.