Review by New York Times Review
TELLING THE STORY of a city is a bold undertaking - an act, depending on the city, that entails parsing myth and historical accounts, archaeologicai digs and theological teachings, to distill the very essence of a place. Nicholas Blincoe takes on this mission with verve in his new book, "Bethlehem," unveiling the history of "the most famous little town in the world," a place whose associations have long existed in the sociocultural Zeitgeist. It is the supposed birthplace of Jesus; a town known for dissent in the face of invading forces; the site of much holiness and bloodshed. Blincoe's thoroughness is nothing short of impressive. The story of Bethlehem begins with an earthquake, forcing long-submerged land upward, some 20 million years ago. But it wasn't until a few millenniums ago that the city's inherent wealth became apparent: Olive oil, a byproduct of a geographical climate "where the wilderness meets civilization," put the town on the map, making it precious in terms of trade, a place worth conquering. In focusing on a single, prized city like Bethlehem, Blincoe is essentially telling the story of colonization. A combination of aqueducts and proximity to Jerusalem made Bethlehem "heavily militarized throughout antiquity." As Blincoe notes, "all it takes to conquer Jerusalem is to seize its water supply.... This is what every future invader did." Through these pages, we witness the town fall to crusaders and Ottomans, the British Army and Israeli forces, its streets brimming with soldiers and prophets and empresses. From ornamental shells dating to the eighth century B.C. all the way to the fatal Oslo accords, Blincoe offers a biography so vividly imagined that I jumped when my phone buzzed, interrupting my reverie of Nabataean temples. If at times the historical rundown feels dense, a bit rushed, the reward is in the lush prose and personal accounts. Blincoe is a joyful writer, well suited to the task of evoking place, with passages like this one transporting the reader with mouthwatering specificity: "The warren of streets that make up Beit Sahour's old town echo with Arab techno music, the clink of bottles of the local Taybeh beer, and thick clouds of metallic tasting smoke from shisha pipes." History humbles. It reminds us that even the most recognized stories aren't finished being written yet. The story of colonialism, for instance, is very much alive and well in Bethlehem to this day, a town administered by the Palestinian Authority but under the military occupation of Israel, with the additional strain - impacting access to everything from natural resources like water to telecommunications and electric pipes - of being surrounded by settlements with a population of over 100,000. The Balfour Declaration, which encouraged "the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people" and set into motion the most enduring conflict of our time, hit its centennial this year. Speaking of the contested narratives of the region, Blincoe notes, "the desert around Bethlehem was never clean or empty._The urge to wish everything away reflects the desire of an immigrant to make a fresh start in a new landscape." Nowhere is this more true than in Bethlehem, a place where "people came armed with their own ideas of truth." Blincoe handles his own narratives of Bethlehem delicately, like a horticulturist pruning beloved orchids, following its many iterations through the rise and fall of civilizations as "a place caught between worlds. ... When there are so many possibilities, there is every reason to hope that one of the possibilities might be a miracle." More than anything, his love for the place leaps off the page; for all its chronicling of incursions and defeat, this is ultimately a book about hope. HALA ALYAN is the author of the novel "Salt Houses."
Copyright (c) The New York Times Company [December 24, 2018]
Review by Booklist Review
When Blincoe visits Bethlehem his in-laws' home he sees a place carrying a far more tangled history than most Christians realize when singing Christmas carols about that little town. Weaving up-close personal experience into an extensively researched narrative, Blincoe limns the developments that transformed Bethlehem from an agricultural region supporting Bronze Age olive-oil merchants to a bustling twenty-first-century city filled with tourist guides and quarry miners. In this winding chronicle, the politics of conquest loom large: readers see how its location at the edge of Jerusalem and in control of its water supply has exposed Bethlehem to assaults by a long list of invaders the Seleucids, the Crusaders, the Mamluks, the Ottomans, the British, and finally in 1967 the Israelis. As he peels away the layers of culture this succession of overlords has given Bethlehem, Blincoe illuminates the continuing relevance of each fascinating layer. Though some readers may resist Blincoe's sharp criticism of what he calls the Israeli occupation, all will leave these pages with a richer understanding of an iconic city.--Christensen, Bryce Copyright 2017 Booklist
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Library Journal Review
Novelist, playwright, and screenwriter Blincoe is an Englishman married to a native of the Palestinian city of Bethlehem. They divide their time between London and Bethlehem, so he is in a good position to introduce readers to this small town located on the West Bank. He employs apt images to help visualize a scene and historical comparisons to help understand particular events. While situating the historical Bethlehem in religious as well as Jewish and Roman history, the author also provides the flavor of the contemporary city. Similar to James Martin's Jesus, this is part travelog, part history, and part memoir. But Blincoe, who has produced two documentaries about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, shows more interest in current events and the political situation of Bethlehem (and Palestine generally). Using the Gospels, historical documents, archaeology, and his 1907 Baedeker, Blincoe weaves a tapestry of history, geography, and politics that illuminates this most famous of areas, here seen through the eyes of one who knows the place intimately. VERDICT Deftly written, this narrative has something to offer a wide variety of readers, whether interested in history, archaeology, religious connection, or the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.-Augustine J. Curley, Newark Abbey, NJ © Copyright 2017. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
