Publisher's Synopsis
Few buildings in the world have had such a power over the imagination as the Temple in Jerusalem. Yet it has not existed for nearly 2000 years. This magnificent book tells the history of that monument of the imagination and its significance for Jews and Christians and Muslims. The Temple was the central religious site of the ancient Jews, a wonder of the ancient world. It was destroyed in the 1st Century AD by the Roman Emperor Titus as part of the crushing of revolt in Judaea. Since then the Temple and its site have had a unique hold on our imagination - a longing for the Jews; a central metaphor of Christian thought (the Holy Sepulchre); an icon for Muslims (the Dome of the Rock). Simon Goldhill explores its history and its changing use in a religious, political and cultural context: a story that from the Crusades onwards has helped form the modern political world. The Wonders of the World is a series of books that focuses on some of the world's most famous sites or monuments. Their names will be familiar to almost everyone: they have achieved iconic stature and are loaded with a fair amount of mythological baggage. These monuments have been the subject of many books over the centuries, but our aim, through the skill and stature of the writers, is to get something much more enlightening, stimulating, even controversial, than straightforward histories or guides.
