Customer Reviews

The Historical Geography of the Holy Land

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This book could do with some more maps, and its easier to use if you already know about basic Holy Land geography. I read a lot of it without knowing that, realized I got virtually nothing out of it, went back and read the Holy Land Satetellite Atlas and started again. Still more information would have been useful, but that was good enough. It really brings the geography to life poetically. This is average probably:
"Travelers usually arrive first at the source of the Leddan, a mound, perhaps a hundred yards long, and rising some sixty feet above the plain before the plain rises to Hermon. Draped by trees and bush, it is plumed and crested by a grove of oaks. On the west side, through huge boulders, whose lower half its rush has worn bare, a stream, about twelve feet broad by three deep, breaks from the bowels of the earth; while another, more shallow and quiet, appears higher in a jungle of reeds and bushes. This opulent mound is called Tell el-Kadi, and Kadi means the same as Dan. It is therefore supposed to be the site of Laish or Leshem, which thge Danites took for their city.'' Etc. etc.

It has a lot of information on wars that took place in certain places, why was a good battleground and what wasn't, how a location affected the religion and culture, etc. Its a great book and I'm glad I bought it, I just wish I could have had a map of cities, rivers, wadis, mounds etc. in the relevant section. By the way I only read one section of it.

It covers the 'Land as a Whole' (with Syrian history etc., climate and fertility etc.), then Western Palestine, and Eastern Palestine. I skipped the Easter Palestine section, which covers the areas east of the Jordan.

It's a great book, but have an atlas handy!

this was apparently printed for me when I ordered it! it's an imprint or reprint of George Adam Smith's fantastic 1800's book on historical Geography. Any of the maps that were in 'pockets' on the original aren't reproduced here as far as I can find, but the maps in the text are. They're not in the best of detail, unfortunately, and don't show the gradations of color that would have been in the original, but all in all it's a great addition to my library and I have plenty of other maps I can use for comparison, including the SWP maps in digital on my computer.