25 must read books - IX

Jerusalem - The Biography

Jerusalem, the holy city. Shrine of Christians, Jews and Muslims. Each trying to rewrite the history to sustain their own myths.

The author Simon Sebag Montefiore takes the history of the old city from its beginnings as a fortified village through every conquest or occupation – Canaanite, Israelite, Assyrian, Babylonian, Persian, Macedonian, Seleucid, Roman, Byzantine, Ummayad, Abassid, Fatimid, Seljuk, Crusader, Saracen, Tatar, Mamluk, Ottoman, British, Jordanian and finally Israeli. Rival places of worship were destroyed and new ones constructed with the stones of earlier buildings, thus making Jerusalem the most complicated archaeological site in the world. Populations were slaughtered or sold into slavery, then later replaced by new waves of immigration. Montefiore's book, packed with fascinating and often grisly detail, is a gripping account of war, betrayal, looting, rape, massacre, sadistic torture, fanaticism, feuds, persecution, corruption, hypocrisy and spirituality.

Montefiore's narrative is remarkably objective when considering his own family's close links with Jewish Jerusalem. 

This is the most comprehensive, objective and interesting read I have come across on the history of Jerusalem, a city which till this day influences world politics. 


Namaste


Prabir