# The Book Club: Simon Sebag Montefiore – The Cauldron Page: https://stenobird.com/podcast/best-of-the-spectator-45373/the-book-club-simon-sebag-montefiore-the-cauldron Text version: https://stenobird.com/podcast/best-of-the-spectator-45373/the-book-club-simon-sebag-montefiore-the-cauldron.md Podcast: [Best of the Spectator](https://stenobird.com/podcast/best-of-the-spectator-45373) Published: 2026-08-25T23:01:00+00:00 Episode link: https://shows.acast.com/best-of-the-spectator/episodes/the-book-club-simon-sebag-montefiore-the-cauldron Audio file: https://sphinx.acast.com/p/open/s/68358fb5e1abc4be6b0308eb/e/6a8daf8383ae7b3466aee785/media.mp3?tk=eyJ0ayI6ImRlZmF1bHQiLCJhZHMiOnRydWUsInNwb25zIjp0cnVlLCJzdGF0dXMiOiJwdWJsaWMifQ==&sig=g8pctZ4ayiiinsTveE7GHxo-h3ixWdxREpXB8mbg6BY Processing state: not_requested JSON: https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/best-of-the-spectator-45373/episodes/the-book-club-simon-sebag-montefiore-the-cauldron Duration seconds: 2362 ## Resource My guest on this week’s Book Club podcast is Simon Sebag Montefiore, the author of a number of fantastic books, including The Cauldron , which released this week. Simon and I talk about the making of the modern middle east, and how we forget some of the most fundamental groups who shaped this part of the world into the region that we know of today. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. ## Actions - request_transcript: `POST https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/best-of-the-spectator-45373/episodes/the-book-club-simon-sebag-montefiore-the-cauldron/transcription-requests` — Idempotently request low-priority transcript generation for this episode. - read_markdown: `GET https://stenobird.com/podcast/best-of-the-spectator-45373/the-book-club-simon-sebag-montefiore-the-cauldron.md` — Read the agent-friendly Markdown representation of this episode resource. A page view does not enqueue transcription. Agents should invoke `request_transcript` explicitly when they need this episode processed. ## Transcript Full transcripts are not published on public pages unless there is a clear rights basis.