Jerusalem 1900: The Holy City in the Age of Possibilities

Perhaps the most contested patch of earth in the world, Jerusalem's Old City experiences consistent violent unrest between Israeli and Palestinian residents, with seemingly no end in sight.

Today, Jerusalem's endless cycle of riots and arrests appears intractable - even unavoidable - and it looks unlikely that harmony will ever be achieved in the city.

But with this book, historian Vincent Lemire shows us that it wasn't always that way, undoing the familiar notion of Jerusalem as a lost cause and revealing a unique moment in history when a more peaceful future seemed possible.

He uses newly opened archives to explore how Jerusalem's elite residents of differing faiths cooperated through an intercommunity municipal council they created in the mid-1860s to administer the affairs of all inhabitants and improve their shared city.