Jerusalem boasts one of the richest histories of any city in the world. Countless books have been written about it, but the graphic novel The History of Jerusalem: An Illustrated Story of 4,000 Years written by Vincent Lemire and illustrated by Christophe Gaultier, presents Jerualem’s history in a uniquely compelling way. Text and images complement each other to explore the shifting architectural, political, economic, military, cultural, demographic, and agricultural dynamics of Jerusalem across millennia.
The History of Jerusalem is narrated by a tree on the city’s famous Mount of Olives. Calling themselves “Zeitoun” or “Olivia,” they are an eyewitness to the city’s vicissitudes. The book’s early sections integrate recent archaeological discoveries (such as the 2012 find of an Iron Age polytheistic temple in Jerusalem’s outskirts) with extant textual sources. When describing events of questionable historical validity, the tree emphasizes those events occurred according to a particular text, such as the Hebrew Bible.
The comic is enriched with quotations from primary sources. For example, the third chapter quotes the Roman historian Cassius Dio. In one panel, he sits over a scroll at his desk, clad in Roman garb. He describes how the emperor Hadrian built a temple to the Roman god Jupiter in Jerusalem. The panel below shows the coronation of the temple with many Romans cheering among a statue of the emperor.
Chapter four, “Al-Quds, Holy City of Islam (614 to 1095),” devotes several pages to accounts from travelers to Jerusalem during the period of Islamic rule. The book depicts Jerusalem according to each traveler’s narrative, highlighting their accounts of Jerusalem’s infrastructure and culture. This clever technique is used throughout the book. In chapter seven, devoted to the Ottoman period of 1516 – 1799, the narrative illustrates Rabbi Uri Ben Simon’s 1540 account of Jerusalem’s hydraulic infrastructure. He is shown walking with a companion across several panels, describing how water is brought from many kilometers away and used in the city.
Although the city itself does not move, it has been controlled by myriad political configurations, from empires to nation-states. Maps are therefore a useful aid in understanding Jerusalem’s shifting role in the politics of different historical contexts. A full-page panel in chapter five shows a circular map of Jerusalem, a way of portraying the city that became popular in the mid-twelfth century.
Jerusalem cannot be discussed apolitically. Lemire and Gaultier explore the modern history of Israel in the final three chapters. Chapter eight explores nineteenth-century European interest in Ottoman Jerusalem. The book depicts Jerusalem according to the accounts of European travelers such as Gustave Flaubert (1850) and Herman Melville (1857). Chapter nine explores the impact of the Zionist movement on Jerusalem. The proposed Jewish state heightened tensions in the region including the 1929 riot that killed 250 people. One response to this was the first female-led motorized protest in the history of Jerusalem, led by the women of the Arab bourgeoisie. Chapter ten explores the establishment of the modern state of Israel in 1948 and the geopolitical battles waged in its aftermath.
Although any historian will find some small details to quibble with, the narrative is generally faithful to the most accepted scholarly paradigms. The History of Jerusalem combines the rigor of academic history with the accessibility of a graphic novel. The visual language of the comic efficiently and beautifully conveys a historical narrative shaped by countless people over centuries.
Brian Hillman is an assistant professor in the Department of Philosophy and Religious Studies at Towson University.
