City of Abraham

City of Abraham: History, Myth and Memory: A Journey Through Hebron

The City of Abraham is a journey through one of the world’s most divided cities – Hebron, the only place in the West Bank where Palestinians and Israelis live side by side. It begins with a hill called Tel Rumeida, the site of ancient Hebron, where the patriarch Abraham – father of the Jews and the Arabs – was supposed to have lived when he arrived in the Promised Land. Through a mixture of travel writing, reportage and interviews, Platt tells the history of the hill and the city in which it stands, and explores the mythic roots of the struggle to control the land.

He meets the Palestinian residents of Tel Rumeida, and the messianic settlers who have made their homes in a block of flats that stands on stilts on an excavated corner of the site. He meets the archaeologists who have attempted to reconstruct the history of the hill. He meets the soldiers who serve in Hebron, and the intermediaries who try to keep the peace in the divided city. The City of Abraham explores the ways in which Hebron’s past continues to inform its tumultuous present, and illuminates the lives of the people at the heart of the most intractable conflict in the world.

The City of Abraham is a journey through one of the world’s most divided cities – Hebron, the only place in the West Bank where Palestinians and Israelis live side by side.

It begins with a hill called Tel Rumeida, the site of ancient Hebron, where the patriarch Abraham – father of the Jews and the Arabs – was supposed to have lived when he arrived in the Promised Land. Platt tells the history of the hill and the city in which it stands, shares the stories of residents and settlers, and illuminates the mythic roots of the struggle to control the land.

Through a mixture of travel writing, reportage and interviews, The City of Abraham explores the ways in which Hebron’s past continues to inform its tumultuous present.

The Great Flood dramatizes the experience of being flooded and considers what will happen as the planet warms and the waters rise, illuminating the reality behind the statistics and headlines that we all too often ignore.

“compelling”The Independent

“first-rate”The i

”thought-provoking”Choice magazine

“does what it says on the tin with dexterity and solicitude”Rachel Cooke, The Observer

“Hebron, the “City of Abraham”, is a much bigger, older but grimmer place than Ramallah. The grimness comes, beyond the burdens of occupation, from the aggressive presence of a small Jewish settler community in its midst, and the massive Israeli force which guards them. Behind that lie the rival Jewish and Muslim religious claims to the city’s heritage, and the accretion of myth and pseudo-history.   The City of Abraham is Edward Platt’s very personal attempt to disentangle all that … compelling… Platt gets up close to the settlers – and finds them a strikingly if predictably unattractive lot.”Stephen Howe, The Independent

“From the front-lines and fault-lines of the Middle East …  Edward Platt brought Biblical history powerfully to bear on a modern flashpoint as he listened to the zealots, peacemakers and survivors of Hebron in The City of Abraham (Picador, £16.99).”Boyd Tonkin, Books of the Year, The Independent

“Edward Platt made his name with Leadville, a funny yet forbidding description of the A40 and those living alongside that traffic-bound thoroughfare. At first glance, his new book, The City of Abraham – History, Myth and Memory: A Journey through Hebron couldn’t be more different.  It is an investigation of the ancient settlement where Abraham, patriach of Christians, Jews and Arabs alike, is supposed to have lived.  The link, as Platt fascinatingly shows, is that religious conflict, past and present, is bound up with the built environment.”Conde Nast Traveller

“This first-rate account blends a study of the “history wars” . . . with sensitive reports on the experience of local people, settlers and soldiers”The i

“This thought-provoking book takes the reader from Biblical times to the divisions of the present day … illuminating the lives at the heart of this intractable conflict.”Choice magazine