Stalin remains one of the creators of our world – like Hitler, the personification of evil. Join award-winning historian Simon Sebag Montefiore to explore his triumphs, crimes, and legacy.

He was the cobbler’s son who became the Red Tzar; a merciless psychopath and consummate politician; a charismatic but dangerous boy who became a fanatical revolutionary, gangster and dictator.

But what lay beneath the many chilling personas of Joseph Stalin? How did he go from abject poverty to absolute power? Where does Stalin feature in the long line of authoritarian Russian rulers – from Ivan the Terrible to Vladimir Putin? And how does his legacy continue to influence Russia today? In an age of strongman politicians, how can a deeper understanding of the past help us to forge a better future?

In this livestream, in conversation event, Matthew Stadlen asks the internationally bestselling author of Jerusalem and Written in History to tell the story of the Red Tzar – from his emergence into the murderous paranoid criminal underworld to his triumph in the Kremlin and beyond.

It’s an unmissable chance to hear one of the most extraordinary stories of all time from a singular and masterful storyteller.

Simon Sebag Montefiore is a bestselling writer whose books have been published in forty-eight languages and who has won prizes for both his history and novels. His award-winning books include Catherine the Great and Potemkin, Young Stalin and The Romanovs, 1613-1913. He read history at Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge University, where he received his Doctorate of Philosophy (PhD). A Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and Visiting Professor of Humanities at the University of Buckingham, he lives in London.