Historian Simon Sebag Montefiore is well credentialed to write this sad yet engrossing history of this fascinating city. His ancestor, English Zionist Sir Moses Montefiore, was instrumental in the return of a Jewish community to the city in the mid-nineteenth century.

The history of Jerusalem is steeped in blood and violence; it was often petty and vicious. When the Catholic and Orthodox Easter happened to fall on the same dates, Catholics and Orthodox Christians fought at the Holy Sepulchre over the right to celebrate mass first – over 40 people were killed. As a sacred site for Christians, Jews and Muslims, the right to hold power in the city has been bitterly fought over for centuries. It has inspired greatness and folly.

In the mid-nineteenth century, the city attracted American evangelists convinced that the second coming was nigh and it became a magnet for an assortment of crackpots. In the early twentieth century, it became the symbol of the Jewish return to Palestine – and that struggle to control Jerusalem continues to destabilise the region today. Mark Rubbo is managing director of Readings