Christian Zionism Archives

The Persistence of Myth

While working on a chapter on Jerusalem during the British Mandate (1917-1948) I ran into one of the private micro-dramas I assume most writers run into and that I learned long ago nobody else is really interested in. But as I thought about it more, there seemed to be a lesson for me that I…

Making Moderate Islam by Rosemary R. Corbett

Nobody seemed to care that an upscale Islamic community center was being proposed for lower Manhattan until 2010 when Rupert Murdoch’s New York Post christened it “The Ground Zero Mosque”. Sporting its new sobriquet, the [...]
Fred Donner and the Early Days of Islam

One of the pleasures I’ve discovered in time I’ve spent so far on my current project is meeting interesting people, and also discovering how generous some people can be with their time and expertise. This [...]
Encountering Bible and Sword by Barbara Tuchman

Last weekend I faced a solitary thousand-mile roundtrip drive from the Bay Area to San Diego down the largely featureless California Central Valley, a chore that became a delight as I spent the time listening [...]
Reading Fields of Blood while watching Charlie Hebdo

I know the sorrow I feel for those murdered in Paris – the creative artists, their colleagues and those killed trying to protect them – is shared by a massive international host who revere the [...]
Inside an Islamic document restoration facility on al Haram al-Sharif

On a recent trip to Jerusalem, I got an unexpected and fascinating tour of a facility just steps away from the Dome of the Rock that is dedicated to restoring old Islamic documents. My host was [...]
A Tale of Two Jerusalem Days

A couple of years ago I found myself changing my flight to Jerusalem to include a side-trip to Jordan, so that I could meet a friend-of-a-cousin-of-a-friend who had offered to help me with my research. [...]
Infographic: New Survey of Palestinian opinion

It can be a startling for Westerners to see a scientific poll of Palestinian residents asking, among other things, if they are in favor of a third intifada, but it is an improvement over the not-too-distant [...]
The Persistence of Myth

While working on a chapter on Jerusalem during the British Mandate (1917-1948) I ran into one of the private micro-dramas I assume most writers run into and that I learned long ago nobody else is [...]
The Field of Blood by Nicholas Morton

Nicholas Morton’s new book on the formative years of the Crusader states is a delight on multiple levels. The Field of Blood: The Battle for Aleppo and the Remaking of the Medieval Middle East provides [...]
The Story of Reason in Islam by Sari Nusseibeh

As a Westerner for whom the intellectual history of Islam is something of a mystery, reading Sari Nusseibeh’s timely and sweeping new book was like swimming on the surface of an unfamiliar ocean. This delightful [...]

Christian Zionism

The Persistence of Myth

Making Moderate Islam by Rosemary R. Corbett

Fred Donner and the Early Days of Islam

Encountering Bible and Sword by Barbara Tuchman

Reading Fields of Blood while watching Charlie Hebdo

Inside an Islamic document restoration facility on al Haram al-Sharif

A Tale of Two Jerusalem Days

Infographic: New Survey of Palestinian opinion

The Persistence of Myth

The Field of Blood by Nicholas Morton

The Story of Reason in Islam by Sari Nusseibeh