Cities of God and Nationalism

Khaldoun Samman, Associate Professor of Sociology at Macalester College in St. Paul, Minnesota, is the author of Cities of God and Nationalism: Mecca, Jerusalem, and Rome as Contested World Cities (Paradigm 2007) and co-editor of Islam and the Orientalist World-System (Paradigm 2008).

• Chapter 1 Modernity, Religion, and Violence: Sacred Cities and the Roots of Conflict; Chapter 2 The Making of Sacred World Cities: How Christianity and Islam Transformed Identities; Chapter 3 Rome, Mecca, and the Coming of Modernity; Chapter 4 Modernity and the Unraveling of Jerusalem; Chapter 5 Beyond Nationalism: Jerusalem and the Negation of Peoplehood;

"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