Jerusalem in History

Rating:
Summary: Fatally flawed
Review: This begins as an interesting work on the history of Jerusalem. The first third of the book covers Jerusalem up to the time of the Arab conquest in 637 AD. The book continues to discuss Umayyad Jerusalem, Crusader Jerusalem (at some length), Jerusalem under the Ayyubids, Mamluks, Ottomans, and modern Jerusalem. A team of ten scholars worked on this book.

Unfortunately, there is a problem. The final chapter, written by Michael Hudson, on modern Jerusalem, is like the thirteenth note of a cuckoo clock: not only is it manifestly wrong in itself, it also casts serious doubt on the preceding notes.

At the start of the twentieth century, Jerusalem was a Jewish oasis in the Middle East. Jews were a big majority in Jerusalem (about 64% of the city in 1910) and a small minority almost everywhere else in Asia. During the past hundred years, much of Israel went from having an Arab majority to having a Jewish majority, but Jerusalem's demographics changed relatively little. But to Hudson, there has been a tragic loss of the Arab character of the city. The way he deplores the existence of anything Jewish about Jerusalem today sounds incredibly racist and reactionary. More than that, it renders his chapter far less than objective. This misleading chapter alone makes it impossible for me to recommend this book as a credible source.

Rating:
Summary: Jerusalem in History
Review: This book is the best book I have read about Jerusalem and its history since ancient times to the Twenty Century; one of the best book I have ever read.