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Jerusalem: The Endless Crusade: The Struggle for the Holy City from its Foundation to the Modern Era
Three millennia.
Three religions.
One city.
Since its first stones were laid, the ancient city of Jerusalem has been at the heart of a never-ending struggle.
To Christians, it is where Jesus was crucified; to Jews, it is the foundation of the Temple; to Muslims, it is where the Prophet left his footprint on earth.
Once the centre of the known world, Jerusalem has remained the focus of man’s energies long after the rise and fall of Rome, Byzantium and the crusades: the very idea of it drove Reformation and Counter-Reformation.
The passion it inspires transcends the centuries, as does the bloodshed, hopes, dreams and harsh realities, but not everyone has learnt from the lessons of the past.
‘Jerusalem: The Endless Crusade’ is the great and tragic story of a city impaled on the axis of history, from its foundation to the present day.
Andrew Sinclair is a British novelist, historian, critic and filmmaker. A Founding Fellow of Churchill College, Cambridge, he has taught and travelled widely across the world.
Endeavour Press is the UK's leading independent digital publisher. For more information on our titles please sign up to our newsletter at www.endeavourpress.com. Each week you will receive updates on free and discounted ebooks. Follow us on Twitter: @EndeavourPress and on Facebook via http://on.fb.me/1HweQV7. We are always interested in hearing from our readers. Endeavour Press believes that the future is now.
Three religions.
One city.
Since its first stones were laid, the ancient city of Jerusalem has been at the heart of a never-ending struggle.
To Christians, it is where Jesus was crucified; to Jews, it is the foundation of the Temple; to Muslims, it is where the Prophet left his footprint on earth.
Once the centre of the known world, Jerusalem has remained the focus of man’s energies long after the rise and fall of Rome, Byzantium and the crusades: the very idea of it drove Reformation and Counter-Reformation.
The passion it inspires transcends the centuries, as does the bloodshed, hopes, dreams and harsh realities, but not everyone has learnt from the lessons of the past.
‘Jerusalem: The Endless Crusade’ is the great and tragic story of a city impaled on the axis of history, from its foundation to the present day.
Andrew Sinclair is a British novelist, historian, critic and filmmaker. A Founding Fellow of Churchill College, Cambridge, he has taught and travelled widely across the world.
Endeavour Press is the UK's leading independent digital publisher. For more information on our titles please sign up to our newsletter at www.endeavourpress.com. Each week you will receive updates on free and discounted ebooks. Follow us on Twitter: @EndeavourPress and on Facebook via http://on.fb.me/1HweQV7. We are always interested in hearing from our readers. Endeavour Press believes that the future is now.
- GenresHistory
295 pages, Kindle Edition
First published September 5, 1995
34 people are currently reading
51 people want to read
About the author
Andrew Sinclair
185 books32 followersAndrew Sinclair was born in Oxford in 1935 and was educated at Eton and Trinity College, Cambridge. After earning a Ph.D. in American History from Cambridge, he pursued an academic career in the United States and England. His first two novels, written while he was still at Cambridge, were both published in 1959: The Breaking of Bumbo (based on his own experience in the Coldstream Guards, and later adapted for a 1970 film written and directed by Sinclair) and My Friend Judas. Other early novels included The Project (1960), The Hallelujah Bum (1963), and The Raker (1964). The latter, also available from Valancourt, is a clever mix of Gothic fantasy and macabre comedy and was inspired by Sinclair’s relationship with Derek Lindsay, the pseudonymous author of the acclaimed novel The Rack (1958). Sinclair’s best-known novel, Gog (1967), a highly imaginative, picaresque account of the adventures of a seven-foot-tall man who washes ashore on the Scottish coast, naked and suffering from amnesia, has been named one of the top 100 modern fantasy novels. As the first in the ‘Albion Triptych’, it was followed by Magog (1972) and King Ludd (1988).
Sinclair’s varied and prolific career has also included work in film and a large output of nonfiction. As a director, he is best known for Under Milk Wood (1972), adapted from a Dylan Thomas play and starring Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor. Sinclair’s nonfiction includes works on American history (including The Better Half: The Emancipation of the American Woman, which won the 1967 Somerset Maugham Award), books on Dylan Thomas, Jack London, Che Guevara, and Francis Bacon, and, more recently, works on the Knights Templar and the Freemasons.
Sinclair was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 1972. He lives in London.
Sinclair’s varied and prolific career has also included work in film and a large output of nonfiction. As a director, he is best known for Under Milk Wood (1972), adapted from a Dylan Thomas play and starring Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor. Sinclair’s nonfiction includes works on American history (including The Better Half: The Emancipation of the American Woman, which won the 1967 Somerset Maugham Award), books on Dylan Thomas, Jack London, Che Guevara, and Francis Bacon, and, more recently, works on the Knights Templar and the Freemasons.
Sinclair was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 1972. He lives in London.
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
September 5, 2019
I found the first few chapters of the book very interesting, the foundation of the city by King David of Israel, the architect Hiram of Tyre, and the rabbinic tradition of the Shamir, the giant worm that could cut through stone.
His history of the Greek,Roman,Byzantine,Persian and Arab occupations of the Land of Israel are also interesting, and I was fascinated by the stories of the Crusader Kingdoms, and of their different orders like the Knights Templars, the Knights Hospitallers and the Teutonic Knights.
But I began to detect an anti-Jewish bias. After writing about the Jewish Commonwealths of Israel until the destruction of Judea by the Romans in 70 CE, he writes almost nothing of the continued Jewish presence in the Land, throughout the period between this event and the birth of modern Zionism.
How dare Sinclair compare the Crusader Kingdoms in the Holy Land to the modern State of Israel? The Crusaders, like the Arabs and Moslems, were aliens, intruders into the Land of Israel.
The State of Israel is the living embodiement of the return of the original inhabitants of the Land of Israel, the Jews, to their own land and the sovereignty of the Jews over their own land , the antithesis of colonialism!
But it is the last three chapters that are insufferable. Here he really reveals his prejudices.
Ignoring his own evidence of the roots of the Jews in Israel, he refers to Zionism as a colonial movement, and even lies about the War of Independence, recreating the libel about the destruction of the village of Deir Yassin, dishonestly reffering to men, women and children as being wilfully murdered and mutilated, this has been proved to be a hoax.
The Jewish fighters identified Deir Yassin, as a base for Iraqi troops,and Arab terrorists to attack Jewish communities and Jewish convoys. They warned the civillian population to leave, and then after an exchange of fire with the Arabs from the village, the Jews won the battle and Arab civillians had been killed in the crossfire.
There was No willful murder of innocents, no rape, no mutilation.
He refers to Deir Yassin as the worst atrocity of the War of Independence, ignoring the thousands of Jewish men, women and children murdered by Arab terrorists and the invading Arab armies.
But it was after he referred to the Israeli declaration of Jerusalem as the eternal capital of Israel in 1949, as meaning the Israelis wanted to continue the conflict, that made me unable to finish the book.
Jerusalem, which was founded by King David as his capital 3000 years ago, and which Jews have lived in ever since. Jerusalem, which is mentioned 600 times in the Torah and not once in the Koran. Jerusalem, in which Jews have been the single largest group of residents since 1840. Jerusalem, which contains the Western Wall of the Temple Mount, the holiest Jewish site in the world. In 1948, Arab forces swept into East Jerusalem and massacred her Jewish inhabitants, driving out the survivors and desecrating the Jewish holy sites.
Andrew Sinclair's Lawrentian British prejudices, made me discount this book as a credible source.
His history of the Greek,Roman,Byzantine,Persian and Arab occupations of the Land of Israel are also interesting, and I was fascinated by the stories of the Crusader Kingdoms, and of their different orders like the Knights Templars, the Knights Hospitallers and the Teutonic Knights.
But I began to detect an anti-Jewish bias. After writing about the Jewish Commonwealths of Israel until the destruction of Judea by the Romans in 70 CE, he writes almost nothing of the continued Jewish presence in the Land, throughout the period between this event and the birth of modern Zionism.
How dare Sinclair compare the Crusader Kingdoms in the Holy Land to the modern State of Israel? The Crusaders, like the Arabs and Moslems, were aliens, intruders into the Land of Israel.
The State of Israel is the living embodiement of the return of the original inhabitants of the Land of Israel, the Jews, to their own land and the sovereignty of the Jews over their own land , the antithesis of colonialism!
But it is the last three chapters that are insufferable. Here he really reveals his prejudices.
Ignoring his own evidence of the roots of the Jews in Israel, he refers to Zionism as a colonial movement, and even lies about the War of Independence, recreating the libel about the destruction of the village of Deir Yassin, dishonestly reffering to men, women and children as being wilfully murdered and mutilated, this has been proved to be a hoax.
The Jewish fighters identified Deir Yassin, as a base for Iraqi troops,and Arab terrorists to attack Jewish communities and Jewish convoys. They warned the civillian population to leave, and then after an exchange of fire with the Arabs from the village, the Jews won the battle and Arab civillians had been killed in the crossfire.
There was No willful murder of innocents, no rape, no mutilation.
He refers to Deir Yassin as the worst atrocity of the War of Independence, ignoring the thousands of Jewish men, women and children murdered by Arab terrorists and the invading Arab armies.
But it was after he referred to the Israeli declaration of Jerusalem as the eternal capital of Israel in 1949, as meaning the Israelis wanted to continue the conflict, that made me unable to finish the book.
Jerusalem, which was founded by King David as his capital 3000 years ago, and which Jews have lived in ever since. Jerusalem, which is mentioned 600 times in the Torah and not once in the Koran. Jerusalem, in which Jews have been the single largest group of residents since 1840. Jerusalem, which contains the Western Wall of the Temple Mount, the holiest Jewish site in the world. In 1948, Arab forces swept into East Jerusalem and massacred her Jewish inhabitants, driving out the survivors and desecrating the Jewish holy sites.
Andrew Sinclair's Lawrentian British prejudices, made me discount this book as a credible source.
April 14, 2020
I read this mainly for the earlier history - the Biblical foundation, the earlier empires and finally the Crusader period. The rest I wasn't particularly interested in - however, others may find it to their liking.
June 16, 2014
A good book that focuses on crusading for both the concept as well as actual Jerusalem. I wish the endnotes had been in standard format instead of free-flow. His use of the term "infidels" is confusing at times as is his more expansive approach to the term "crusaders."
October 29, 2015
A good book that tells the history of Jeruslam. Highly informative and entertaining when you have to pass time. I quite liked it and recommend it.
Disclaimer: I received from netgalley for my honest review
Disclaimer: I received from netgalley for my honest review
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews