Measuring Jerusalem: The Palestine Exploration Fund and British Interests in the Holy Land - Hardcover

Moscrop, John James

9780718502201: Measuring Jerusalem: The Palestine Exploration Fund and British Interests in the Holy Land

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0718502205 ISBN 13: 9780718502201

Publisher: Leicester University Press, 2000

Founded in 1865, the Palestine Exploration Fund was, for its first 25 years, both the principal British exploration society in the Holy Land and a surveying body which was heavily dependent on the Royal Engineers and the War Office. Survey work was closely linked to military interests as well as to biblical, historical and archaeological research. Famous names involved with the work of the Fund included Charles Wilson, the man instrumental in establishing an organized British military intelligence system, Charles Warren, destined to become Metropolitan Police Commissioner, Claude Conder, Lord Kitchener, arhaeologists Sir William Flinders Petrie, Frederick Jones Bliss, R.A. McAlistair and Duncan MacKenzie, Charles Leonard Woolley and T.E. Lawrence. This book presents a history of the Fund, covering the period from 1800 to 1914. Use is made of the Fund's own records to illustrate its work and to show the involvement of the War Office. An overview of British interests in the Holy Land is also included.

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Review:

" few students of the history and literature of Orientalism have noted [that] over recent years research has focused on representations of the Orient and neglected to investigate the actual dynamics and machinery of the discourse of empire. John James Moscrop's study of the Palestine Exploration Fund (PEF) contributes towards filling this gap." -Billie Melman, Vitorian Studies journal "The history of the Palestine Exploration Fund from 1865 to the start of the Great War is of interest because in it can be found the seeds of many of the problems that beset Palestine now. John Moscrop's meticulous and detailed account shows how pious Victorian Englishmen translated their devotion to the text of the Bible into a belief that the land described in it belonged to them in a spiritual sense." Edward Fox, Journal of Palestine Studies, Autumn 2001

About the Author:

John James Moscrop is a barrister.

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