Jerusalem

Montefiore tells three thousand years of Jerusalem through the people who wanted it: Davidic kings, Roman generals, caliphs, crusaders, Ottoman governors and British officers, each convinced the city was theirs by right. The method is biography rather than argument, built from families and rivalries and a great deal of blood, and it is deliberately even-handed about claims that are still being fought over. Long, dense with incident, and unusually readable for a history of this scale.