Jerusalem.

A new, updated, and revised edition of *Jerusalem: A Biography*, a history of the wider Middle East from the perspective of the Holy City, covering from prehistory to 2020, from King David to Donald Trump. The story of Jerusalem is the story of the world. Jerusalem is a global city, the capital of two peoples, the shrine of three faiths; it is the site of the Last Judgment and the arena of the clash of civilizations today. How did this small, remote city become the Holy City, the “center of the world,” and now the key to peace in the Middle East? Drawing on new archives and a lifetime of scholarship, Montefiore reveals this ever-changing city through the wars, love stories, and discoveries of the kings, empresses, prophets, poets, saints, conquerors, and courtesans who built Jerusalem, destroyed it, recorded its events, and believed in it. This work is a classic of modern literature. It is not only an epic story of three thousand years of faith, massacres, fanaticism, and coexistence, but also an updated history of the entire Middle East, from King David to the twenty-first century, from the origins of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the wars of today. Thus, Jerusalem becomes Jerusalem—the only city that exists twice—in heaven and on earth.