In early twentieth-century Russia, Sashenka Zeitlin becomes caught up in the revolutionary fervor destined to bring down the czar, as she deals with arrest and imprisonment, the bloody battles that engulf the country under Stalin, and a forbidden love affair.

The shadowy journey from obscurity to power of the Georgian cobbler's son who became the Red Tsar--the man who, along with Hitler, remains the modern personification of evil: a merciless psychopath who was, as well, a consummate politician, the dynamic world statesman who helped create and industrialize the USSR, outplayed Churchill and Roosevelt, and defeated Hitler? Historian Montefiore tells the story of a charismatic, turbulent boy born into poverty,...

In the third episode, Simon discovers surprises in Istanbul as it rose to become the imperial capital and Islam's most powerful city. Visiting the great mosques and palaces built by the Ottoman emperors, he tells the stories behind them-of royal concubines, murderous bodyguards, and sultans both the powerful and the depraved. He shows how the Christians, Muslims, and Jews of the city once co-existed before the waves of nationalist rebellions brought...

In the second episode, he explores modern Istanbul in search of the last desperate centuries of Christian Byzantium, in which the once glorious city was buffeted by enemies from both East and West, and yet still produced a golden artistic renaissance. This is story of the Christian crusaders who destroyed the city, and the Ottoman Muslims who restored it to life as an imperial capital after the epic siege of 1453. In this series, Simon Sebag Montefiore...