The giant characters of history – from Mozart to da Vinci, Shakespeare to Einstein, Henry VIII to Hitler, Catherine the Great to Margaret Thatcher, Jesus Christ to Genghis Khan – lived lives of astonishing drama and adventure, debauchery and slaughter, but they also formed our world and will shape our future. Through the lives of not just kings, empresses, sultans and conquerors, but also explorers, artists, prophets, courtesans and psychopaths, Simon Sebag Montefiore recounts the lives of the titans who changed the world: the characters we should all know and the stories we should never forget.