This work traces the evolution of the belief that Jerusalem is the center of the Christian, Jewish, and Muslim religious worlds and argues that this fixation is a main cause of the modern-day Israeli-Palestinian conflict. It uncovers the ways in which the city became a transcendent fantasy that ignites religious fervour unlike anywhere else on Earth. He shows how the conflicts within this holiest of cities underscore an important point of history:...

Joe Carroll was an Air Force lieutenant who designated Vietnamese targets for American bombs. Joe's son, James, began adulthood by fulfilling his father's abandoned dream of joining the priesthood. But soon a father's hopes for his son--and a son's peace with his father--were ruined, when James chose to protest the war and all it stood for.

As part of a continuing esponage mission, professor Jake MacVeagh, son of a high-ranking CIA operative, is recruited by a mysterious woman to help return his defector uncle to the West.