Bible and Sword

In this beautifully repackaged and reissued edition of her first book, two-time Pulitzer Prize-winner Barbara Tuchman argues that the seed of today's troubles in the Middle East were planted long before the first efforts at founding the modern state of Israel and establishes her genius for drawing sharp connections between past and present.

From early times the British people have been drawn to the Holy Land through two major influences: the translation of the Bible into English and, later, the imperial need to control the road to India and access to the oil of the Middle East. Under these influences, one cultural and the other geopolitical, countless Englishmen-pilgrims, crusaders, missionaries, merchants, explorers, and surveyors-have made their way to the land of the ancient Hebrews.

With the lucidity and vividness that characterize all of her work, Barbara Tuchman brings to life the development of these twin motives-the Bible and the sword-in the conciousness of the British people, until they were finally brought together at the end of World War I when Britain's conquest of Palestine from the Turks and the solemn moment of entering Jerusalem were imminent.