Download high-resolution image
Listen to a clip from the audiobook
audio play button
0:00
0:00

Titans of History

The Giants Who Made Our World

Read by Steve West
Listen to a clip from the audiobook
audio play button
0:00
0:00
From the New York Times bestselling author of The Romanovs—and one of our pre-eminent historians and a prizewinning writer—comes an inspiring, horrifying, and accessible collection of short, entertaining, and vivid life stories about the giant characters who have changed the course of world history.
 
These titans of history—encompassing queens, empresses, and actresses, kings, sultans, and conquerors, as well as prophets, artists, courtesans, psychopaths, and explorers—lived lives of astonishing drama, courage and adventure, debauchery and slaughter, virtue and crime. The subjects range widely throughout time and geography from Buddha and Genghis Khan to Nero and Churchill; from Catherine the Great and Anne Frank to Toussaint l’Ouverture and Martin Luther King; from Mozart to Mao; from Jesus Christ and Shakespeare to Einstein and Elvis. Through these lives, Montefiore recounts the most momentous world events—from ancient times to the Crusades, the Holocaust, and the Gulf Wars.
 
These are the historical figures that everyone should know and the stories we should never forget.
© Marcus Leoni
SIMON SEBAG MONTEFIORE is a historian of Russia and the Middle East whose books are published in more than forty languages. Catherine the Great and Potemkin was short-listed for the Samuel Johnson Prize for Non-Fiction. Stalin: The Court of the Red Tsar won the History Book of the Year Prize at the British Book Awards, and Young Stalin won the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Biography, the Costa Biography Award, and le Grande Prix de la biographie politique. He received his Ph.D. from Cambridge, and he is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. He lives in London.

simonsebagmontefiore.com View titles by Simon Sebag Montefiore

About

From the New York Times bestselling author of The Romanovs—and one of our pre-eminent historians and a prizewinning writer—comes an inspiring, horrifying, and accessible collection of short, entertaining, and vivid life stories about the giant characters who have changed the course of world history.
 
These titans of history—encompassing queens, empresses, and actresses, kings, sultans, and conquerors, as well as prophets, artists, courtesans, psychopaths, and explorers—lived lives of astonishing drama, courage and adventure, debauchery and slaughter, virtue and crime. The subjects range widely throughout time and geography from Buddha and Genghis Khan to Nero and Churchill; from Catherine the Great and Anne Frank to Toussaint l’Ouverture and Martin Luther King; from Mozart to Mao; from Jesus Christ and Shakespeare to Einstein and Elvis. Through these lives, Montefiore recounts the most momentous world events—from ancient times to the Crusades, the Holocaust, and the Gulf Wars.
 
These are the historical figures that everyone should know and the stories we should never forget.

Author

© Marcus Leoni
SIMON SEBAG MONTEFIORE is a historian of Russia and the Middle East whose books are published in more than forty languages. Catherine the Great and Potemkin was short-listed for the Samuel Johnson Prize for Non-Fiction. Stalin: The Court of the Red Tsar won the History Book of the Year Prize at the British Book Awards, and Young Stalin won the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Biography, the Costa Biography Award, and le Grande Prix de la biographie politique. He received his Ph.D. from Cambridge, and he is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. He lives in London.

simonsebagmontefiore.com View titles by Simon Sebag Montefiore

Three Penguin Random House Authors Win Pulitzer Prizes

On Monday, May 5, three Penguin Random House authors were honored with a Pulitzer Prize. Established in 1917, the Pulitzer Prizes are the most prestigious awards in American letters. To date, PRH has 143 Pulitzer Prize winners, including William Faulkner, Eudora Welty, Josh Steinbeck, Ron Chernow, Anne Applebaum, Colson Whitehead, and many more. Take a look at our 2025 Pulitzer Prize

Read more

Books for LGBTQIA+ Pride Month

In June we celebrate Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer, Intersex, and Asexual + (LGBTQIA+) Pride Month, which honors the 1969 Stonewall riots in Manhattan. Pride Month is a time to both celebrate the accomplishments of those in the LGBTQ+ community and recognize the ongoing struggles faced by many across the world who wish to live

Read more