Synopses & Reviews
“Provocative . . . the book brims with splendid insights.” —
Los Angeles TimesJerusalem: the ancient City on a Hill, a place central to three major religions, a transcendent fantasy that ignites religious fervor unlike anywhere else on earth. James Carrolls urgent, masterly Jerusalem, Jerusalem uncovers the history of the city and explores how it came to define culture in both the Middle East and America.
Carroll shows how the New World was shaped by obsessions with Jerusalem, from Christopher Columbuss search for a westward route to the city, to the fascination felt by American presidents from Abraham Lincoln to Ronald Reagan. Heavenly Jerusalem defines the American imagination — and always the earthly city smolders. Jerusalem fever, inextricably tied to Christian fervor, is the deadly — unnamed — third party to the Israeli-Palestinian wars. Understanding this fever is the key that unlocks world history, and the diagnosis that gives us our best chance to reimagine peace.
“I dare you to read this book and see Jerusalem, or yourself, the same way.” — Bernard Avishai, author of The Hebrew Republic
"So provocative and illuminating that it should not be overlooked by anyone who cares about the future of Jerusalem." — Jewish Journal
JAMES CARROLL's critically admired books include Practicing Catholic, the National Book Award-winning An American Requiem, House of War, which won the first PEN/Galbraith Award, and the New York Times bestseller Constantines Sword, now an acclaimed documentary.
Praise for Jerusalem, Jerusalem
“James Carrolls Jerusalem, Jerusalem should be required reading for all: it is a lucid, calm, deeply compelling history of the literal and symbolic significance of that city, at the heart and origins of Judaism, Christianity and Islam. From Abrahams sacrifice of Isaac through Charlemagne and Spinoza to Adolf Eichmann and Billy Graham, Carroll marshals an extraordinary range of sources to illuminate the interwoven violence and redemption that define Jerusalem in the world entire, up to this day.”—Claire Messud, author of The Emperors Children
“James Carroll writes with Jesuitical passion about a city that is defined by its arguments. The pace of the book is breathless, its candor exhilarating.”—New Jersey Star-Ledger
“The compelling follow-up to [Carroll's] best-selling Constantines Sword...his use of Jerusalem as a prism to examine the development of monotheism, and his prescription for what he believes might be a more positive future path, provide a powerful and provocative intellectual journey."—BookPage
“A gripping account of how Jerusalem has fired the spiritual imagination of the West from Biblical times to the present—and a deeply personal meditation on the religious impulse itself, and its dark double, sacred violence. More than a rebuke to jihadists and religious extremists, this book challenges secularists who believe that, for modern Western societies, wars of religion are a thing of the past.”—Michael Sandel, author of Justice: What's the Right Thing To Do?
"What a remarkable book! I was blown away by the breadth and depth of it…Another hugely important book for James Carroll, right there with Constantine's Sword."—Reza Aslan, author of No god but God
"One of the broadest and most balanced accounts of the city of King David in recent years...Conceptually profound, richly detailed, and wonderfully realized, this book brings to life the dynamic story of the Divided City."—Publishers Weekly, starred review
Review
"A masterful look at the paradoxical city on a hill...a meditation unlike any book published this season, indeed a meditation for all seasons." - Boston Globe "Provocative" - San Francisco Chronicle "Jerusalem, Jerusalem [is] James Carroll's timely contribution to richer understanding of the conflict over this city....If you want to follow the twists and turns between Israelis and Palestinians over who may end up controlling what in the holy city and why, reading Carroll's book is a helpful place to begin." -St. Louis Today "[Jerusalem, Jerusalem brings a fresh interpretation of the city as well as the spiritual impetus of three monotheisitic religions' toehold in its long, bloody past....By reading this landmark book, those who think they know all there is to know about Jerusalem or the three religions that have coalesced around it will discover how much they didn't know." -Oklahoman the compelling follow-up to [Carroll's] best-selling Constantines Sword...his use of Jerusalem as a prism to examine the development of monotheism, and his prescription for what he believes might be a more positive future path, provide a powerful and provocative intellectual journey." - BookPage "one of the broadest and most balanced accounts of the city of King David in recent years...Conceptually profound, richly detailed, and wonderfully realized, this book brings to life the dynamic story of the Divided City." - STARRED, Publishers Weekly "Carrolls writing is so compelling, so beautifully constructed, that, ironically, the book can be a very slow read. There is something on almost every page that makes the reader want to stop and contemplate. For those meeting Jerusalem for the first time, this volume makes a stunning introduction. For others, who have struggled with the citys conundrums, either its symbolic meaning in the history of civilization or its place in the modern world, Carrolls reflections will add clarity if not closure." - STARRED, Booklist "A sound, deeply felt study of Jerusalem as the 'cockpit of violence' for the three Abrahamic religions....Another winner from a skillful writer and thinker of the first rank." - Kirkus "Carroll here explores not Jerusalem but the idea of Jerusalem—how, from the Crusades to Christopher Columbuss Jerusalem-centric view to the founding of Israel, the city has inspired passionate idealism and hence conflict....one of my nonfiction favorites." - Library Journal
Synopsis
From the author of the New York Times best-selling Constantine's Sword comes a richly layered history, fueled by powerful insight, of the ancient city at the epicenter of Christian, Jewish, and Muslim experience.
Synopsis
From the New York Times bestselling author of Constantine's Sword comes a richly layered history of Jerusalem, the ancient city at the epicenter of the Christian, Jewish, and Muslim experience.
Jerusalem: the ancient City on a Hill, a place central to three major religions, a transcendent fantasy that ignites religious fervor unlike anywhere else on earth. James Carroll's urgent, masterly Jerusalem, Jerusalem uncovers the history of the city and explores how it came to define culture in both the Middle East and America. Carroll shows how the New World was shaped by obsessions with Jerusalem, from Christopher Columbus's search for a westward route to the city, to the fascination felt by American presidents from Abraham Lincoln to Ronald Reagan.
Heavenly Jerusalem defines the American imagination--and always the earthly city smolders. Jerusalem fever, inextricably tied to Christian fervor, is the deadly, unnamed, third party to the Israeli-Palestinian conflicts. Understanding this fever is the key that unlocks world history, and the diagnosis that gives us our best chance to reimagine peace.
"Provocative . . . the book brims with splendid insights." -- Los Angeles Times
"I dare you to read this book and see Jerusalem, or yourself, the same way. --Bernard Avishai, author of The Hebrew Republic
So provocative and illuminating that it should not be overlooked by anyone who cares about the future of Jerusalem.--Jewish Journal
Synopsis
James Carrolls urgent, masterly
Jerusalem, Jerusalem uncovers the ways in which the ancient city became, unlike any other in the world—reaching deep into our contemporary lives—an incendiary fantasy of a city.
In Carrolls provocative reading of the deep past, the Bibles brutality responded to the violence that threatened Jerusalem from the start. Centuries later, the mounting European fixation on a heavenly Jerusalem sparked both anti-Semitism and racist colonial contempt. The holy wars of the Knights Templar burned apocalyptic mayhem into the Western mind. Carrolls brilliant and original leap is to show how, as Christopher Columbus carried his own Jerusalemcentric worldview to the West, America too was powerfully shaped by the dream of the City on a Hill—from Governor Winthrop to Abraham Lincoln to Woodrow Wilson to Ronald Reagan. The nuclear brinksmanship of the 1973 Yom Kippur War helps prove his point: religion and violence fuel each other, with Jerusalem the ground zero of the heat.
To the standard set by Constantines Sword, Jerusalem, Jerusalem is again a “rare book that combines searing passion . . . with a subject that has affected all our lives” (Chicago Tribune).
Synopsis
James Carrolls masterful
Jerusalem, Jerusalem uncovers the ways in which the ancient city became a transcendent fantasy that ignites religious fervor. In Carrolls provocative reading of the deep past, the Bible came into being as an act of resistance to the violence that threatened Jerusalem from the start. Centuries later, holy wars burned apocalyptic Jerusalem into the Western mind, sparking expressly religious conflict among Jews, Christians, and Muslims.
Carrolls brilliant leap is to show how, as Christopher Columbus carried his own Jerusalem-centric worldview to the West, America too was powerfully shaped by the dream of the City on a Hill. Heavenly Jerusalem defines the American imagination—and yet, always, the earthly city smolders. Jerusalem fever, inextricably tied to Christian fervor, is the deadly—unnamed—third party to the Israeli-Palestinian wars. Understanding Jerusalem fever is the key that unlocks world history and the diagnosis that gives us our best chance to reimagine peace.
Synopsis
James Carrolls urgent, masterly Jerusalem, Jerusalem uncovers the ways in which the ancient city became a transcendent fantasy that ignites religious fervor unlike anywhere else on earth. That fervor animates American history as much as it does the Middle East, in the present as deeply as in the past. In Carrolls provocative reading of the deep past, the Bible came into being as an act of resistance to the violence that threatened Jerusalem from the start. Centuries later, holy wars burned apocalyptic Jerusalem into the Western mind, sparking expressly religious conflict among Jews, Christians, and Muslims. The heat stretched from Richard the Lionheart to Field Marshal Edmund Allenby, whose World War I conquest of the city relit the fuse for a war that still rages. Carrolls brilliant leap is to show how, as Christopher Columbus was dispatched from the Crusades-obsessed Knights Templars last outpost in Iberia, the New World too was powerfully shaped by the millennial obsessions of the City on a Hill — from Governor Winthrop to Abraham Lincoln to Woodrow Wilson to Ronald Reagan. Heavenly Jerusalem defines the American imagination — and always, the earthly city smolders. Jerusalem fever, inextricably tied to Christian fervor, is the deadly — unnamed — third party to the Israeli-Palestinian wars. Understanding Jerusalem fever is the key that unlocks world history, and the diagnosis that gives us our best chance to reimagine peace.
Synopsis
“Provocative . . . the book brims with splendid insights.” —
Los Angeles TimesJerusalem: the ancient City on a Hill, a place central to three major religions, a transcendent fantasy that ignites religious fervor unlike anywhere else on earth. James Carrolls urgent, masterly Jerusalem, Jerusalem uncovers the history of the city and explores how it came to define culture in both the Middle East and America.
Carroll shows how the New World was shaped by obsessions with Jerusalem, from Christopher Columbuss search for a westward route to the city, to the fascination felt by American presidents from Abraham Lincoln to Ronald Reagan. Heavenly Jerusalem defines the American imagination — and always the earthly city smolders. Jerusalem fever, inextricably tied to Christian fervor, is the deadly — unnamed — third party to the Israeli-Palestinian wars. Understanding this fever is the key that unlocks world history, and the diagnosis that gives us our best chance to reimagine peace.
“I dare you to read this book and see Jerusalem, or yourself, the same way.” — Bernard Avishai, author of The Hebrew Republic
"So provocative and illuminating that it should not be overlooked by anyone who cares about the future of Jerusalem." — Jewish Journal
About the Author
James Carroll was raised in Washington, D.C., and ordained to the Catholic priesthood in 1969. He served as a chaplain at Boston University from 1969 to 1974, then left the priesthood to become a writer. A distinguished scholar-
in-residence at Suffolk University, he is a columnist for the Boston Globe and a
regular contributor to the Daily Beast.
His critically admired books include Practicing Catholic, the National Book Award-winning An American Requiem, House of War, which won the first PEN/Galbraith Award, and the New York Times bestseller Constantines Sword, now an acclaimed documentary.
Table of Contents
Contents
One: Introduction: Two Jerusalems • 1
1. Heat 1
2. Jerusalem Today 5
3. Hic 13
4. A Personal Note 17
Two: Deep Violence • 24
1. The Clock of the Past 24
2. Mark Makers 28
3. Enter Jerusalem 32
4. Sacrifi ce 36
Three: The Bible Resists • 44
1. Wartime Literature 44
2. Wars That Did Not Happen 46
3. Gods Ambivalence 50
4. Conceived in Jerusalem,
Born in Exile from Jerusalem 56
5. The Empty Temple 64
6. Abrahams Kill 70
7. Apocalypse Then 72
Four: The Cross Against Itself • 77
1. Jesus to Jerusalem 77
2. Romes War and Its Consequences 81
3. The New Temple 89
4. Scapegoat Mechanism 95
5. The Violence of Christians 99
6. Apocalypse Now 106
Five: The Rock of Islam • 113
1. No god but God 113
2. Al Quds 121
3. The Masterpiece Relic 126
4. Jerusalem Agonistes 132
5. 1099 136
6. Knights Templar 139
7. Christopher the Christ Bearer 151
Six: City on a Hill • 155
1. Reformation Wars 155
2. Separatists 166
3. The God of Peace 173
4. Return to Jerusalem 181
5. Temple Roots 185
6. Jerusalem Marchers 189
Seven: Messiah Nation • 194
1. Jerusalem and Exile 194
2. The Printing Press and Ottoman Jerusalem 199
3. The Peaceful Crusade 205
4. Restorationism 209
5. Abrahams Altar 211
6. Gods Right Arm 221
7. Apostolic Succession 225
Eight: Jerusalem Builded Here • 231
1. The Last Crusader 231
2. Diasporas End 240
3. Waiting to Baptize You 243
4. Grand Muft i 248
5. Eichmann in Jerusalem 255
6. Nakba 262
7. Soap 267
8. Twins in Trauma 275
Nine: Millennium • 278
1. The Temple Weapons 278
2. Sacrifi ce Operatives 286
3. Crusade 292
Ten: Conclusion: Good Religion • 296
1. Neither Secular Nor Sacred 296
2. Not Gods Way, But Mans 301
3. Learning from History 307
Notes • 319
Bibliography • 382
Acknowledgments • 394
Index • 397