Jerusalem: a biography / Simon Sebag Montefiore

[Betty]

Jerusalem: The Biography by Simon Sebag Montefiore

The book's story begins in 70 A.D. with Roman Titus's mercilessly quelling a rebellion in Jerusalem and destroying its Second Temple.
http://www.nationalgeographic.com/los...

[Betty]

The story continues through the Davidic line in ancient Israel and Judah to the conflict with King Sennacherib of Assyria.

[Betty]

The audio reader of Pamuk's masterpiece The Museum of Innocence, the incomparable John Lee here wonderfully reads Montefiore's encyclopedic history of Jerusalem. For a fictive approach to the past, there's Elizabeth Peter's mystery A River in the Sky about the search for the Ark of the Covenant. I shall first finish the nonfiction!

[Betty]

Even though this story is a biography of a city, it's told through the lives of people who were connected to it during a segment of its history. Montefiore makes that point to Peter Slen at BookTV.

[Betty]

The story of Jerusalem in this book covers 3,000 years, according to a segment of Meet the Author. The city is said to have originated at the Temple Mount. For the author, the book isn't about the city's turbulent history, nor about his family's tribal connection to it, but about its universality and symbolism. This video/transcript might be informative about why he wrote the book and about Jerusalem's history.

[Betty]

The chronological story in Parts One through Three focused upon the origins and development of Abrahamic religions. Among them "Judaism" and "Christianity", as well as of "Paganism." The Abrahamic religions move into seventh-century CE in Part Four with "Islam" ("Muhammad", "The Arab Conquest") in conjunction with the book's theme of Jerusalem's universality.

[Betty]

An hour-long video of a lecture by Montefiore informs about the author's role as an historian in writing this book. With regard to Jerusalem's universality is the role of that city in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam for the Apocalypse. I'm partway into the video lecture, so it is suspenseful to anticipate what further ideas the lecturer will bring forth.

[Kathy]

I have just completed the first of three sections of the audiobook. To say this is epic is an understatement! I have to admit that, at times, the violence is a bit much to take. But the perspective granted through this unique approach (the biography of a city) is welcomed. It brings a new dimension to my Easter season this year. Thanks, Asma, for the links to the videos.

[Betty]

Kathy wrote: "...the perspective granted through this unique approach (the biography of a city) is welcomed. It brings a new dimension to my Easter season this year..."

You're welcome, Kathy. That is a coincidence--reading "Jerusalem" at Eastertide.

The notion of 'biography' has come to extend beyond its traditional boundaries of a person's life (or persons The Wright Brothers) set out in a bio or autobio. That expanded application of the biographical genre to cover a river, a painting, a math equation might have been around longer than I'd realized. Anyway, I've noticed its expanded usage more often.

In the author's aforementioned video lecture in a previous post, he defines the biography of the city as the history of the numerous people who lived in or passed through the city. Perhaps such bios as E=mc²: A Biography of the World's Most Famous Equation, Sargent's Daughters: The Biography of a Painting , and Red Nile: The Biography of the World's Greatest River are basically about the people historically involved with that equation, painting, and river.

[Betty]

The French name of Outremer applies to the medieval Crusader states in this region. Outremer by Richard Allibone uses the genre of historical fiction to tell the story of the Third Crusade. He tells through novel form what Montefiore tells through nonfiction. Many other writers base their stories, historical or fantasy, in Outremer.

[Betty]

Jerusalem attracted interest from Europe since at least the Crusades. The French Napoleon conducted a campaign in Egypt and Syria on his way to the city . Notable British women of the early nineteenth century visited the city--the archaeologist Lady Stanhope and Princess Caroline of Brunswick. The author describes their visits in chapter 35.

Star of the Morning : The Life and Times of Lady Hester Stanhope

The Unruly Queen: The Life of Queen Caroline

[Betty]

Nineteenth-century Jerusalem attracts European and American interest from governments and from individuals. Millenarian hopes, America's religiosity, British ideas for a Jewish settlement, Russian intervention, Albanian aggression, Ottoman governance, as well as Armenian presence combine with competing religious sects and widespread reminders of the city's bloody past so that the city's shabbiness and instability do not please visitors. The western interest coincides with a succession of rulers.