Simon Sebag Montefiore

‘He who has a why to live for,’ says Nietzsche, ‘can tolerate any how.’

The tournament of geopolitics – what Pope Julius II called ‘the World Game’ – is implacable; success is always temporary, and the human cost is always too high

to chart the damage humans are doing to their earth through global warming and pollution

And then there is the growing number of hereditary rulers in Asia and Africa who – behind the cosplay of republican institutions – are in effect monarchs

History has always been important because the past, whether gold-speckled splendour or heroic suffering, however imagined, possesses a legitimacy and an authenticity, even a sanctity, that is built into us – and often expressed through the stories of families and nations. It can move multitudes, create nations, justify slaughter and heroism, tyranny and freedom, with the silent power of a thousand armies

That is why at its best, its pursuit of truth is essential

Every ideology, religion and empire has sought to control the hallowed past to legitimize whatever they are doing in the present. There are plenty of attempts today in east and west to force history into an ideology

The first commodities and luxuries were traded or exchanged: from Iran to Serbia, copper, gold and silver were mined and crafted; lapis lazuli was used in burials; and in the Yangtze Valley, the Chinese started to make