Jerusalem Jerusalem | James Carroll

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.