Jerusalem : city of longing / Simon Goldhill.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Goldhill, Simon.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Christian shrines--Jerusalem.

Christian shrines.

Jewish shrines--Jerusalem.

Jewish shrines.

Islamic shrines--Jerusalem.

Islamic shrines.

Architecture--Jerusalem.

Architecture.

Jerusalem--Description and travel.

Jerusalem.

Jerusalem--Buildings, structures, etc.

Jerusalem--Ethnic relations.

Jerusalem--Religion.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (368 pages ) illustrations, maps.

Place of Publication:

Cambridge, MA : Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2008.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

Goldhill takes on the archaeology of human imagination, hope, and disaster to provide a tour through the history of this image filled, ideology laden city. Along the way we discover the forgotten stories and the lesser known aspects of politics that continue to make Jerusalem one of the most embattled cities in the world. Jerusalem is the site of some of the most famous religious monuments in the world, from the Dome of the Rock to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre to the Western Wall of the Temple. Since the nineteenth century, the city has been a premier tourist destination, not least because of the countless religious pilgrims from the three Abrahamic faiths. But Jerusalem is more than a tourist site-it is a city where every square mile is layered with historical significance, religious intensity, and extraordinary stories. It is a city rebuilt by each ruling Empire in its own way: the Jews, the Romans, the Christians, the Muslims, and for the past sixty years, the modern Israelis. What makes Jerusalem so unique is the heady mix, in one place, of centuries of passion and scandal, kingdom-threatening wars and petty squabbles, architectural magnificence and bizarre relics, spiritual longing and political cruelty. It is a history marked by three great forces: religion, war, and monumentality. In this book, Simon Goldhill takes on this peculiar archaeology of human imagination, hope, and disaster to provide a tour through the history of this most image-filled and ideology-laden city-from the bedrock of the Old City to the towering roofs of the Holy Sepulchre. Along the way, we discover through layers of buried and exposed memories-the long history, the forgotten stories, and the lesser-known aspects of contemporary politics that continue to make Jerusalem one of the most embattled cities in the world.

Contents:

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.

Notes:

Originally published: 2008.

Includes bibliographical references (p. [335]-340) and index.

ISBN:

0-674-26385-5

0-674-03772-3

OCLC:

712627644