Jerusalem: Battlegrounds of Memory (Kodansha Globe) - Softcover

Elon, Amos

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1568360991 ISBN 13: 9781568360997

Publisher: Kodansha USA Inc, 1995

Synopsis

Amos Elon's Jerusalem: Battlegrounds of Memory is a fascinating exploration of an enduring mystery: How did a small city that is inherently difficult to defend from attack, that lies far from key trade routes and vital bodies of water, and that has never boasted an essential commercial or strategic reason for being, capture the imagination of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam for the past three millenia? The answers to this enigma unfold with brilliant style and lively erudition in the pages of a book reviewers have called a "sweeping and eloquent meditation" and a "masterful biography of a city."

About this title

About the Author:

Amos Elon (1926-2009) was an essayist, journalist and historian. He was born in Vienna, immigrating to Palestine when a child in 1933. He was for long considered one of Israel's leading journalists. Never a mere votary of Zionism, he finally moved to Tuscany when his disillusionment became closer to despair. Inevitably branded 'a self-hating jew' he once on television snapped at a reactionary accuser, 'I don't hate myself, I just hate Jews like you.' The author of nine books, Faber Finds is reissuing four of them: Founder; The Israelis; Jerusalem and Herzl

From Publishers Weekly:

Modern Jerusalem, in Elon's words, is "a breeding ground of ghettos." Israelis and Palestinians continue to work and live apart from one another; the city fissures into four rough quadrangles--Moslem, Jewish, Christian, Armenian--each with its own religion, its distinctive tongue or tongues. In a rich, beautifully written, impartial meditation that is also a healing act, Elon, noted Israeli author and journalist ( Herzl ; The Israelis: Founders and Sons ), measures the clarity of Jerusalem's biblical landscape against a past and present choked with religious and political strife. For a host of pilgrims from Dominican friar Felix Fabri to Mark Twain, Chateaubriand and Gogol, Jerusalem has served as a mirror of faith, despair, hope or disbelief. Elon, a contemporary wanderer through Jerusalem, as well as a long-time resident, sadly finds that the modern city "has almost always been intolerant and exclusivist."
Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: Kodansha USA Inc
• Publication date: 1995
• ISBN 10: 1568360991
• ISBN 13: 9781568360997
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 288