Rating: 
Summary: Good History - But Biased
Review: Armstrong does a good job of showing the history of Jerusalem and how the religions of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam came to view the city as holy ground. It does give insight into the mid east situation today. That said, Armstrong writes from a liberal (non-faith) point of view. I think this leads her [writing] to have certain prejudices in history and the way she views these religions. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title
Rating: 
Summary: Very even-handed approach to a tough topic
Review: As one who has studied and read much on the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, I greatly appreciated Armstrong's even-handedness in this book. It made it a pleasure to read. She has a way of making history so much fun.
Rating: 
Summary: Good overview, be careful of author's bias
Review: As someone who is not part of the Jewish, Muslim or Christian world, I found Ms Armstrong's narrative well-paced and meticulously detailed. This book is written from the point of view of a religion expert, and the construction of the pre-Christian times of Jerusalem are particularly creative and evocative. Certainly, Ms Armstrong captures the complexity of problems that Jerusalem faces.Be careful, though, of Ms Armstrong's strongly pro-Muslim bias. The history and present of Jerusalem are convoluted to say the least and Ms Armstrong does tend to paint the Muslim community's role and current stance with flattering brush strokes, and that of the Jews and Christian with disparaging ones. I do agree with her eventual conclusion - tragically, the history of Jerusalem does not make a solution to the current situation very likely. In fact, it is possible to see history being repeated for the umpteenth time with the most recent events.
Rating:
Summary: Humanity¿s City
Review: From the first shards found at this tortured city (3,200 BCE) named for a Syrian deity to the most recent example of humankind's shared propensity for religious nonsense and murder, Karen Armstrong is right on target. This is humanity's city, not the property of any one religious dispensation. An amazing and wonderful recounting of the ebb and flow of poor Jerusalem and it's hapless people. Crusades, scriptural balderdash, and, ever hundred years or so, an occassional hero. Alas, same as it ever was.
Rating: 
Summary: Inconsistent
Review: I found that the book was interesting in the way it tries to expose the history of the city. However, I found several mistakes in how the different religions and peoples are portrayed. The book starts by challenging the judeo-christian concept that the Bible was given directly by G-d to the people of Israel, asigning several authors to it. Once the author stops trying to interpret the Bible, and sticks to historical facts, the book becomes more fluid and easier to understand.
Rating: 
Summary: interesting but biased
Review: I have just finished reading this book and A History of God and found them both interesting but biased. Ms. Armstrong explains away all actinos and atrocities committed by Muslims while highlighting and denouncing actions taken by Christians and Jews. for example, in her view the building of mosques and other holy Islamic shrines are welcome but similar activities by Christians and Jews are considered to be "putting facts on the ground so that they may control Jerusalem." Repeatedly, muslims defend themselves against the aggression and atrocities of Christians and Jews but their atrocities are justified because the others acted first. I cannot vouch for her "facts" but I can unequivocally state that her interpretation of those "facts" does a strong disservice to the hope of having Muslims, Christians and Jews understand each other and find ways of creating peace.
Rating:
Summary: Interesting from an historical point of view
Review: I walked into this book having read several of Karen Armstrong's books, so I knew of her leanings that other reviewers have pointed out. Of course, if you are going to write about three major faiths, it is natural to expect some bias towards one of them. That aside, I found her history to be very interesting and helped put this city into a perspective I had not had before. She shows how an off the beaten path city became one of the most important places for three of the world's religions, and a contentious site of conflict. What Armstrong does well is to show the shifting lines that have occurred between areas of the city as various religious powers came to control. But more importantly she brings the various pieces of Jerusalem and puts them in a coherent organized narrative. Many of the places mentioned in the bible are put into perspective with each other, and their historical changes are traced over time. Even more useful is that the author generously includes maps throughout the book to show the changes and shifting lines of groups throughout time. As someone who knew little about the geography of Jerusalem, I found this to help keep all the players and movements straight. The book lags at points but overall moves very well through the centuries. This is an excellent overview history of this holy city and would be a very good introduction to the reader wishing to know more. It should not be the only book you read on the region, but rather use it as one view of the history which has brought us to the modern religious conflicts of the area.
Rating:
Summary: Biblically Inaccurate
Review: I was unable to finish this book because Karen Armstrong's Biblical references are so glaringly wrong. She has the God of the Old Testament splitting a sea monster in half during creation, and Isaiah telling King Ahaz that the Messiah will be his Queen's unborn son, just to name a few. I eventually came to the conclusion that if her Biblical references cannot be trusted, how can I trust that the rest of her research is correct as well? I don't know what Bible she was reading, but it wasn't the Judaic/Christian one!
Rating:
Summary: Ambitious book; depends on what you're looking for...
Review: I went into this book without any true knowledge of the conflict in the Middle East and what made Jerusalem such a holy but yet disputed city. The book did answer my questions and gave me lots of the key information about the birth of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. The author focuses on using architecture and history of the major monuments of the religions as her device to tell the story of Jerusalem. I went into reading the book as a textbook so I got the significant dates and times out of it, but the city was controlled by a different group seeminly every 10 years so the book gets tedious and dry most of the time. As an introductory look at the history of Jerusalem and more generally the battle between the Jews and the Arabs, A History Of Jerusalem is a good start.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent Story of Jerusalem pre-1900
Review: I would read this book for the fascinating information that it contains, rather than for the political content which, as some of the other reviewers have noted, does tend to favor Islam at the expense of Christianity and Judaism. However, if you look past that, it is all very well written, and is ultimately an appeal to peace and understanding among all of the people involved. I cannot, and I don't think the author can, fully appeciate the current situation, but her treatment of the past (say before 1900) is excellent and thorougly enlightening. Her treatment of the period up to the rise of Islam is excellent, particularly the pre-Christian period, which explains many questions I had about the Biblical account of the history of the area in a convincing fashion. Particularly enjoyable are the various maps which show the many (there must be about a dozen) times and ways Jerusalem was rebuilt after being destroyed. However, the book contains many completely out-of-place photographs which do nothing except promote her political assessment of the current situation. Anyway, it's well-written enough to deserve the 5-stars, but I would advise reading other views besides her own in connection with fully understanding the current conflict.
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