The Zealous Intruders

"At the end of the eighteenth century, in the wake of Napoleon's disastrous invasion, Palestine was seen by the West as a barren and neglected country in need of Western enterprise--a belief that led to the greatest rush to the Holy Land since the Crusades. Naomi Shepherd's account of how the West rediscovered Palestine illuminates the fantasies and the figures: There were the explorers like Seetzen and Burckhardt, using Palestine to train for Arabia, who found the sites of antiquity at the height of classical revival. There were scholars like Robinson and Tristram, who struggled to match scriptural truth with scientific progress, and painters like Holman Hunt who tried to portray it. There were the Western consuls, rulers by proxy, who were exploited by their protégés and compromised by their colonists. There were the tourists led by Thomas Cook, who suffered like penitential pilgrims without their compensations. Antiquarians seeking evidence of a colossal Jewish antiquity found the ambiguous remains of several cultures, and the great archaeologist Clermont Ganneau was hounded out of Palestine by his rivals. Finally, there were the missionaries who attempted to convert the poor and orthodox Jews to Christianity, but brought them closer to the assimilated and wealthy Jew of the West. Thus, rescued from oblivion, the object of so many interests, fantasies, and anxieties in Europe and America, Palestine defied and resisted the West as strongly as it obsessed and challenged it."--Book jacket.

Beyond its central premise, the book can be read through the connected lenses of Nonfiction. Those themes offer useful points of attention as the characters, ideas, or world develop, especially where the book complicates the expectations of its primary category.