British - Historian | June 27, 1965 -
A book's title is vital.
Simon Sebag Montefiore
BookTitleVital
In Georgia, where I spend much time, the democratically elected pro-western President Mikhail Saakashvili has been beleaguered by a riotous opposition which proposes creating a constitutional monarchy under the Bagrationi dynasty, with a Spanish racing driver, Prince 'Jorge' Bagrationi, as king.
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If only all straight weddings could be somehow gay-ified.
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The West is pathetically naive about Russian reformers. We long to believe they are real liberals, but no liberal will ever rule Russia.
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Yeltsin was admirable but flawed, noble but tainted, but in his own negligent grandeur, he undermined his own real achievements - and accelerated their ruin.
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The tsar of War and Peace, especially in the BBC version, is a complete popinjay and a useless character. The real tsar, Alexander I, had an amazing career.
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Alexander II really used autocracy well to negotiate the freeing of the serfs in 1861.
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Real stories - whether in pure fiction or historical - have a certain indefinable power; we are endlessly curious about the past and hungry for learning that we hope will illuminate the present.
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In 1918, a police chief of Jerusalem was a Montefiore.
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Writing about Jerusalem was very stressful; every word counts.
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I don't feel that Jewish people have a class.
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As a youth, I was much more of a Zionist. But Israel was very different then. Israel's changed, and so have I.
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