excellent, informative listen

the narrator was excellent and represented the books content well.

the subject matter was well presented.

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1 person found this helpful

Biography of a City

Jerusalem, a city that has influenced countless generations of people. A crazy place that continues to entrance and horrify, at the same time. I enjoyed this Audiobook thoroughly. Although, for those religious listeners out there - this book offers the typical secular understanding of the bible and is critical of the history contained therein.

As for the story itself, it was good, quite a detailed and in depth account of Jerusalem's history. I like that it gave context to all the outside forces that effected and influenced the city as well. It discussed the goings on in the wider world that had a direct impact on Jerusalem also. One of the annoying things I didn't like however was that it went too into the lives of people involved in the city - it detracted a little from the story on that front I thought. It tended to be a bit wordy and over the top, which was good and bad. But this deserves a solid 4 stars for an intriguing listen.

As for the Narrator - he was very good. He had very good pronunciation and did a good job of all the names. He didn't detract from the story. But I must say his reading had somewhat of a pompous air to it. Still solid though, 4 stars.

Overall, I give this 4 stars.

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7 people found this helpful

Fascinating book, annoying delivery

Sebag Montefiore is a terrific writer of history, and it's not his fault if some of the history related here is so convoluted it's hard to absorb. However the book is not so much read as intoned by John Lee - an irritatingly affected performance in which he sounds like he is reading the Bible itself. Admittedly I'm sensitive to reading style so others may not have a problem with it. It is a damn long book though so download the sample first to see if you mightn't rather just read it yourself.

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6 people found this helpful

A complete and fantastic history

An amazingly detailed chronological history of Jerusalem, its politics, religions and peoples. A truly complete history.

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Good overview but subjective narrative

The author has put together an all encompassing snapshot of Jerusalem which is easily read and assumes the audience has some grasp of history. However, the narrative is flawed in its subjective nature, being very Jew-centric in describing modern history, yet dismissive of biblical texts as myth and tradition rather than a historical document. Overall well put together but like any history, needs to be read with a “pinch of salt”.

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Ridiculous agenda

Horrible book. It was clear that the purpose of the book was to disprove Christianity.
The arguments were weak, made up, and the whole thing was more of an against Christianity book than history book.
For any Christian searching for something nice to listen (like me), this is not it. It even manipulates some of the history to fit the anti-christian agenda.

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2 people found this helpful

Disappointing

I'm disappointed the author didn't seem to acknowledge the Palestinian refugees and the camps in the neighbouring countries that were a direct result of the Israeli occupation of Palestine!

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1 person found this helpful

Narrator was distracting

I need to go back to the ‘tried and true’ method called ‘reading’. The narrator’s speed of speech, but more importantly his unusual inflection and accent is disconcerting and distracting from the brilliance of the history. His narrating was so false I stopped listening at chapter 2.

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