Bethlehem: Biography of a Town, Blincoe Nicholas

Bethlehem] brings within reach 11,000 years of history, centering on the beloved towns unique place in the world. Blincoes love of Bethlehem is compelling, even as he does not shy away from the complexities of its chronicle. --President Jimmy Carter
Bethlehem is so suffused with history and myth that it feels like an unreal city even to those who call it home. For many, Bethlehem remains the little town at the edge of the desert described in Biblical accounts. Today, the city is hemmed in by a wall and surrounded by forty-one Israeli settlements and hostile settlers and soldiers.
Nicholas Blincoe tells the towns history through the visceral experience of living there, taking readers through its stone streets and desert wadis, its monasteries, aqueducts, and orchards to show the city from every angle and era. His portrait of Bethlehem sheds light on one of the worlds most intractable political problems, and he maintains that if the long thread winding back to the citys ancient past is severed, the chances of an end to the Palestine-Israel conflict will be lost with it.