Cities of God and Nationalism: Rome, Mecca, and Jerusalem as Contested Sacred World Cities - Softcover

"Fascinating and vividly written....Samman ranges over two thousand years of history to give us a comparative account of three 'world cities.' Highly recommended."
―Krishan Kumar in Choice

“This book is a tour de force in different fields of knowledge. It takes world-city and world-history literatures to a higher level of depth and understanding. Samman moves beyond the economic reductionist assumptions of these literatures. It is difficult to imagine a more pioneering, in-depth study of world cities.”
―Ramón Grosfoguel, Professor, Department of Ethnic Studies, University of California, Berkeley

“A remarkable and original discussion of three great sacred cities across time, and their transformation by nationalism in the modern world. It ends with an appeal to the renewal of the symbiotic existences they have known and may know once again. A necessary basis for rethinking the present and the future.”
―Immanuel Wallerstein, Yale University

“...both competent and very instructive...”
-Ghada Hashem Talhami, Lake Forest College, in Middle East Policy

"A tour-de-force in different fields of knowledge. It takes world-city and world-history literatures to a higher level of depth and understanding. It is difficult to imagine a more pioneering, in-depth study of world cities." Ramon Grosfoguel, Professor, Department of Ethnic Studies, University of California, Berkeley "A remarkable and original discussion of three great sacred cities across time, and their transformation by nationalism in the modern world." Immanuel Wallerstein, Yale University Far from spawning an age of tolerance, modernity has created the social basis of division and exclusion. This book elaborates this provocative claim as it explores the rich but divided histories of three cities located at the crossroads of Islam, Christianity, and Judaism. Many observers presume that violence is built into these sacred cities because their citizens cling to religious or cultural ideals of some archaic age; only when this history is overcome can citizens enter a new age of brotherhood. Samman persuades us to refocus our attention on modernity, which has instilled troubling dilemmas from the outside. He shows how these sacred places long ago entered the modern world where global political and economic forces exacerbate nationalism and regional divisions. If we are to resolve deep conflicts we must re-imagine the institutional basis on which modernity, rather than religion, is built.