Jerusalem Unbound: Geography, History, and the Future of the Holy City (Hardcover) (ISBN-13: 9780231161961)

Jerusalem's formal political borders reveal neither the dynamics of power in the city nor the underlying factors that make an agreement between Israel and the Palestinians so difficult. The lines delineating Israeli authority are frequently different from those delineating segregated housing or areas of uneven service provision or parallel national electoral districts of competing educational jurisdictions. In particular, the city's large number of holy sites and restricted religious compounds create enclaves that continually threaten to undermine the Israeli state's authority and control over the city. This lack of congruity between political control and the actual spatial organization and everyday use of the city leaves many areas of occupied East Jerusalem in a kind of twilight zone where citizenship, property rights, and the enforcement of the rule of law are ambiguously applied.

Michael Dumper plots a history of Jerusalem that examines this intersecting and multileveled matrix and, in so doing, is able to portray the constraints on Israeli control over the city and the resilience of Palestinian enclaves after forty-five years of Israeli occupation. Adding to this complex mix is the role of numerous external influences--religious, political, financial, and cultural--so that the city is also a crucible for broader contestation. While the Palestinians may not return to their previous preeminence in the city, neither will Israel be able to assert a total and irreversible dominance. His conclusion is that the city will not only have to be shared but that the sharing will be based upon these many borders and the interplay between history, geography, and religion.

Author: Michael Dumper
ISBN-10: 0231161964
ISBN-13: 9780231161961
Publisher: Columbia University Press
Language: English
Published: 06/17/2014
Pages: 360
Format: Hardcover
Weight: 1.35lbs
Size: 9.10h x 6.10w x 1.20d

Review Citation(s):
Kirkus Reviews 05/01/2014
Library Journal 07/01/2014 pg. 100
Choice 03/01/2015 pg. 1224