{{short description|British writer (born 1955)}} {{For|the bishop born Hugh William Sebag-Montefiore|Hugh Montefiore}} {{Use dmy dates|date=April 2022}} '''Nicholas Hugh Sebag-Montefiore''' (born 5 March 1955) is a British writer. He trained as a barrister before becoming a journalist and then a non-fiction writer.
== Biography == He has published two books on the history of the Second World War, of which the first was ''Enigma: The Battle for the Code'' in 2000 and concerned the breaking of the German Enigma machine code at Bletchley Park.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.waterstones.com/author/hugh-sebag-montefiore/451490|title=Hugh Sebag-Montefiore books and biography |publisher=Waterstones |language=en|access-date=2018-09-03}}</ref> In 2006, ''Dunkirk: Fight to the Last Man'' came out.{{cn|date=August 2025}}
He was among the signatories of the 2007 open letter to the BBC against the closure of the ''Timewatch'' documentary series, published in ''The Guardian''.<ref>{{citation |title=The historians' letter to the BBC Trust |work=The Guardian |date=2 October 2007 |url=https://www.theguardian.com/media/2007/oct/02/bbc.television1}}</ref>
In 2016, ''Somme: Into the Breach'' appeared in time for the 100th anniversary of the Somme Offensive during the First World War.{{cn|date=August 2025}}
== Family background == He has been married since 1989 to Aviva Burnstock, the head of the Department of Art Conservation & Technology at the Courtauld Institute in London. His brother Simon Sebag Montefiore is also a writer, besides being an historian. His cousin Denzil was a platoon commander at Dunkirk.<ref name="Dunkirk">{{cite web | url=https://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/26/arts/26iht-idbriefs27B.4355401.html?_r=0 | title=Review: Hugh Sebag-Montefiore's "Dunkirk" | work=International Herald Tribune | date=January 26, 2007 | accessdate=December 13, 2017 | author=Hitchens, Christopher| authorlink = Christopher Hitchens | quote=The author's own cousin, Denzil Sebag-Montefiore, may have been one of the few Jewish platoon commanders on those gruesome beaches... | via=The New York Times }}</ref>
Through his paternal grandmother Audrey Haldinstein, he is a great-great-grandson of Herbert Leon, who owned Bletchley Park until he sold it to the British government in 1938.<ref>{{citation |title=Descendants of Jacob Lumbrozzo de Mattos |page=29 |publisher=The Baruch Lousadas and the Barrows |access-date=19 May 2024 |url=http://www.barrow-lousada.org/PDFdocs/Lousada%20Family%20Genealogy%20from%20David%20Man%202007.pdf}}</ref>
Cecil Sebag-Montefiore, the author's great-grandfather, committed suicide after serving with the Royal Engineers on the western Front of World War I.<ref>{{cite web |last=Thomson |first=Ian |author-link=Ian Thomson (writer) |url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/jul/04/somme-into-the-breach-hugh-sebag-montefiore-review-ian-thomson | title=Somme: Into the Breach by Hugh Sebag-Montefiore review | work=The Observer | date=July 4, 2016 | accessdate=December 14, 2017| quote=The author’s own great-grandfather, Cecil Sebag-Montefiore, we learn, killed himself after serving with the Royal Engineers on the western front. }}</ref>
Montefiore's father, Stephen Eric Sebag-Montefiore, was descended from a line of wealthy Sephardic Jews who were diplomats and bankers all over Europe. At the start of the 19th century, his great-great uncle, Sir Moses Montefiore, became a banking partner of N M Rothschild & Sons.<ref>{{Cite news|url=https://www.britannica.com/biography/Sir-Moses-Montefiore-Baronet|title=Sir Moses Montefiore, Baronet {{!}} British philanthropist|work=Encyclopedia Britannica|access-date=2018-09-03|language=en}}</ref> His mother, Phyllis April Jaffé, comes from a Lithuanian Jewish family of poor scholars. Her parents fled the Russian Empire at the turn of the 20th century; they bought tickets for New York City, but were cheated, being instead dropped off at Cork, Ireland. During the Limerick Boycott of 1904 they left Ireland and moved to Newcastle, England. The father of his namesake, Bishop of Birmingham Hugh Montefiore, was the great-great-nephew of Sir Moses.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/10960-montefiore|title=MONTEFIORE - JewishEncyclopedia.com|website=www.jewishencyclopedia.com|access-date=2018-09-03}}</ref>
== Books == * ''Kings on the Catwalk: The Louis Vuitton and Moët-Hennessy Affair'', London: Chapmans, 1992 ({{ISBN|9781855925250}}) * ''Enigma: The Battle for the Code'', London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2000 ({{ISBN|029784251X}}); revised edition: Phoenix, 2001 ({{ISBN|9780753811306}}) * ''Dunkirk: Fight to the Last Man'', London: Viking, 2006 ({{ISBN|9780670910823}}); revised edition: Penguin Books, 2015 ({{isbn|9780241972267}}){{efn|A reviewer judged the book's title to be "misleading" in suggesting that "the BEF fought to its last man in France in 1940", although he noted that several such cases are discussed in the book and that the Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire regiment received such orders but did not fulfil them.<ref>{{citation |last=Koch |first=James V. |title=Definitely a Fight, But Not to the Last Man (review of Hugh Sebag-Montefiore, ''Dunkirk: Fight to the Last Man'') |publisher=H-Net: H-German Reviews |date=May 2009 |url=https://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=24055}}</ref>}} * ''Somme: Into the Breach'', London: Viking, 2016 ({{ISBN|9780670918386}}); revised edition: Penguin Books, 2017 ({{ISBN|9780141043326}})
== Notes == {{Notelist}}
== References == {{Reflist}}
==External links== * {{official|http://www.hughsebagmontefiore.com/}} *[https://www.theguardian.com/profile/hugh-sebag-montefiore Hugh Sebag-Montefiore] on ''The Guardian'' *[https://www.penguin.co.uk/authors/hugh-sebag-montefiore/28592/ Hugh Sebag-Montefiore] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180903215315/https://www.penguin.co.uk/authors/hugh-sebag-montefiore/28592/ |date=3 September 2018 }} on ''Penguin Books''
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Sebag-Montefiore, Hugh}} Hugh Category:1955 births Category:Living people Category:British non-fiction writers Category:Jewish British writers Category:British Sephardi Jews Category:British male writers Category:People educated at Harrow School Category:Alumni of Magdalene College, Cambridge Category:British male non-fiction writers
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