Jerusalem is the universal city, the capital of two peoples, the shrine of three faiths; it is the prize of empires, the site of Judgment Day and the battlefield of today’s clash of civilizations. From King David to the 21st century, from the birth of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam to the Israel-Palestine conflict, this is the epic history of three thousand years of faith, slaughter, fanaticism, and coexistence. In this masterful narrative, Simon Sebag Montefiore brings the holy city to life, through the people who created and destroyed it—from Herod, Cleopatra and Nero to Churchill, Rasputin and Truman—and draws on the latest scholarship, his own family history, and a lifetime of study to show that the story of Jerusalem is truly the story of the world.
NOTES ON NAMES, TRANSLITERATIONS AND TITLES
Chapter 3. The Kingdom and the Temple
Chapter 5. The Whore of Babylon
Chapter 12. The Last of the Herods
Chapter 13. Jewish Wars: The Death of Jerusalem
Chapter 15. The Apogee of Byzantium
Chapter 16. Sunset of the Byzantines: Persian Invasion
Chapter 18. The Umayyads: The Temple Restored
Chapter 19. The Abbasids: Distant Masters
Chapter 20. The Fatimids: Tolerance and Lunacy
Chapter 22. The Rise of Outremer
Chapter 23. The Golden Age of Outremer
Chapter 27. The Third Crusade: Saladin and Richard
Chapter 28. The Saladin Dynasty
Chapter 30. Decline of the Mamluks
Chapter 31. The Magnificence of Suleiman
Chapter 32. Mystics and Messiahs
Chapter 34. Napoleon in the Holy Land
Chapter 35. The New Romantics: Chateaubriand and Disraeli
Chapter 36. The Albanian Conquest
Chapter 40. Arab City, Imperial City
Chapter 43. The Oud-Player Of Jerusalem
Chapter 45. Arab Revolt, Balfour Declaration
Chapter 46. The Christmas Present
Chapter 47. The Victors And The Spoils
Chapter 48. The British Mandate
Chapter 51. Jewish Independence, Arab Catastrophe