Jerusalem: City of Longing

* Preface * The Center of the Christian World * The Center of Jewish Jerusalem * The Center of Muslim Jerusalem * The Old City * The Oldest City * The Victorian City * The Modern City * Bibliography * Acknowledgments * Illustration Credits * Index

Simon Goldhill is Professor of Greek Literature and Culture at the University of Cambridge.

Goldhill...provides an illuminating archeological, architectural and historical guide to Jerusalem's most important holy and secular sites from biblical times to the present...This is a highly knowledgeable and beautifully written look at both the "heavenly" and the "earthly" Jerusalem. Publishers Weekly 20080225 Goldhill depicts a city that has transcended the often violent claims and controversies of its historical figures, revealing the many forgotten people who seek daily accommodation within its walls. Indirectly, as "more than another history," this work helps to explain how religious faith has brought layers of different civilizations to a very special place. -- Zachary T. Irwin Library Journal 20080415 Goldhill takes the reader on a tour of recent digs in Jerusalem, visits important buildings, provides fresh readings of texts and discusses competing theories with consummate learning and expository skill...Jerusalem: City of Longing is chock-a-block with entertaining anecdotes--many, alas, tall tales--about this most solemn of cities...The chief merits of this book, which should attract a broad readership, are the zestful vivacity with which Goldhill explores Jerusalem's ancient ruins and texts and the mixture of scholarship that he...injects into his discussion of the unholy history of the holy city. -- Bernard Wasserstein Times Higher Education Supplement 20080508 [A] pleasing archaeological history of Israel's capital city. Jerusalem: City of Longing is a meticulously researched study of how the city came to be built and rebuilt by successive faith communities and conquerors...The maps are uncluttered, the photographs breathtaking. Not the least virtue of Goldhill's volume is its remarkably balanced account of the Mandate, and of how Jerusalem came to be divided, and then reunited once more. -- Geoffrey Alderman Jewish Chronicle 20080606 In Jerusalem: City of Longing, [Goldhill] serves up a playful pastiche of a book, peppered with enchanting anecdotes,