Jerusalem in the Twentieth Century

by Martin Gilbert

Overview

From one of the world's most revered historians, the first major history of contemporary Jerusalem

""Gilbert is a first-rate storyteller."" --The Wall Street Journal

""Fascinating and admirably readable . . . unmatched for sheer breadth of acutely observed historical detail."" --Christopher Walker, The Times (London)

""Most noteworthy for its richness of letters, journals and anecdotes . . . the major events of this century come alive in eyewitness accounts."" --The New York Times Book Review

""Extraordinarily vivid glimpses of Jerusalem life."" --Atlanta Journal Constitution

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780471283287
Publisher:	TURNER PUB CO
Publication date:	10/01/1998
Edition description:	First Edition
Pages:	412
Product dimensions:	5.81(w) x 8.89(h) x 1.22(d)

About the Author

SIR MARTIN GILBERT is one of the world's preeminent biographers and historians. In addition to his universally acclaimed biography of Churchill, he is the author of In Search of Churchill (Wiley); The First World War; The Second World War: A Complete History; Auschwitz and the Allies; and Holocaust: The History of the Jews of Europe During the Second World War. A Fellow of Merton College, Oxford, he divides his time between London and Jerusalem.

Table of Contents

Awakenings, 1900-1909.

Conflicts, 1910-1914.

War, 1914-1917.

The British Conquest, December 1917.

British Military Rule, 1918-1919.

In Search of Equilibrium, 1920-1921.

The First Six Years of the British Mandate, 1922-1929.

The Riots of 1929.

The Search for Normality, 1930-1936.

The Riots of 1936 and Their Aftermath.

The Second World War, 1939-1945.

A City in Turmoil, 1945-1947.

The Last Four and a Half Months of British Rule, January-May 1948.

Two Weeks of War, 14-29 May 1948.

Truce, Violence, Armistice and Renewal, June 1948 to December 1949.

A Tale of Two Cities, 1950-1967.

The Six-Day War, June 1967.

Reunification: The First Two Years, 1967-1969.

The Search for Harmony, 1970-1980.

From Annexation to Intifada, 1980-1989.

Towards the Twenty-First Century: Struggle, Uncertainty and Hope.

Bibliography.

Maps.

Index.

Editorial Reviews

Fascinating and admirably readable...unmatched for sheer breadth of acutely observed historical detail. -- The Times (London)

Christopher Walker

Martin Gilbert is a brilliant chronicler...he packs in the main events but lightens the narrative with telling detail.

Economist Review

A comprehensive history of modern Jerusalem by an outstanding historian. It tells the story of how in one turbulent century, Jerusalem has evolved from a small provincial town in the Ottoman empire to a bustling metropolis and center of world attention. The book covers every facet of political, cultural, religious, architectural, intellectual, and social life in Jerusalem.

Jewish Book World

This history is a monument to our capacity to create, and fight over, competing realities within the same space and time.

Noted historian Gilbert (The First World War, 1994; The Day the War Ended, 1995) continues to establish himself as a thorough researcher with an eye for detail, irony, and symbolic moments. He follows the saga of Jerusalem from the turn of the century, when the city is an Ottoman backwater, filthy and neglected. Even this early, and with a Muslim occupier, there is a palpable hostility to the city's Jews and Christians on the part of the area's Muslim Arabs. Though Jews were in the majority even then, the Mufti's agents made Jerusalem's non-Muslims pay for access to their holy places. Readers are allowed to weigh current calls to internationalize, share, or divide this contested city with a century's perspective. Among the recurring patterns are the killing of Arab "collaborators" by Arab nationalists (1,000 between 1936 and '39) and the assassination of peacemakers (Jordan's King Abdullah) well before Sadat and Rabin. Other surprises include the fact that most of terrorist bombs set in Jewish West Jerusalem were rigged by British army deserters bribed by the Mufti, and that uniformed Syrian soldiers were counted among the civilian casualties in the massacre by Israelis of Arabs at Deir Yassin. Gilbert doesn't spare us the heart-wrenching details of an Arab bride-to-be blown up by Jewish terrorists or a Jewish Quarter mother felled by a sniper while hanging laundry. No strong bias mars the book, but most of the documentation, from texts to newspapers and journals, is from Jewish sources. Further, the plight of Jerusalem's Christian Arabs and Armenians could have received more attention.

Gilbert has risen to the complex challenge of his earthly/heavenly subject, offering us, in this compelling history, both a Dung Gate and a Lions' Gate with which to enter this timeless city on its 3,000th anniversary.

Kirkus Reviews