Overview of the Chapters
How the Book was Made
Excerpts from Reviews

"The Chronicle of Pilgrimage to the Holy-Land" is a hard-cover, deluxe volume of 256 breathtaking pages, transporting you through the most important moments of Christian history – from the birth of Jesus to the present.
This unique album is a rare historical record of events that are of interest to Catholics, Evangelicals, Protestants, and Orthodox alike. The book presents 2,000 years of history in a journalistic format, reporting on the dramatic events of the Holy Land as if they appeared on the front page of a color newspaper today. The volume is full of historical details that are of interest to casual readers and historians alike.

This masterpiece took about 10 years to produce and includes over 500 newspaper articles and scholarly articles, and more than 1,150 maps, illustrations, etchings, lithographs, and photographs. These beautiful images and engaging stories bring readers the fascinating history of where the Christian faith was born, the Christian holy sites themselves, and the pilgrims who traveled from around the world – often at great personal risk and expense – to visit these sites, from the day they were sanctified until present day.

This special album is a genuine collector’s item that makes for the perfect gift for your family, friends, business associates, for Christmas, Easter or any other special occasion.

The book is also an excellent educational resource to anyone studying (or teaching) the history of the Christian faith in the Holy Land.

Take the 3D “Book Tour” now or watch the video interview about the book.

The book is also available in Spanish.

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With 11 illustrated chapters, the Chronicle of Pilgrimage to the Holy Land follows the history, stories and legends of the pilgrims in the Holy Land since the birth of Jesus until today. Each chapter begins with a broader overview of the historical period covered in the chapter and is followed by scores of articles that take a closer look at specific events and people during that period.
Below are just a few of the topics covered by each of the chapters (although there are many more topics in the book that are not listed here):

Chapter 1: The Footsteps of Jesus. Here began the origins of the Christian faith, with the holy family, the birth of Jesus, and the events surrounding his life and death.

Chapter 2: The Byzantine Period (324-634). The first Christian communities were established and Christianity flourished after the 324 AD victory of Constantine, the first Christian Roman emperor. During this period, Constantine built the first four churches in the Holy Land, including the Church of the Holy Sepulcher and the Church of the Nativity. Many other Christian buildings were constructed and pilgrimages to the Holy Land began.

Chapter 3: The Arab period (634-1099). This epoch was marked by frequent governmental change. The period began with the Muslim conquest of the Holy Land and Jerusalem from the Byzantine Christian rulers, and concluded with the recovery of the same territory from the Muslims. The end of the 11th century marks the beginning of the Holy Land’s reoccupation by the Christians.

Chapter 4: The Kingdom of Jerusalem (1099-1187). This period witnessed the first Crusades and the many battles to reconquer the Holy Land, the establishment of the Order of Knights Templars to protect pilgrims, and the rebuilding of Christian Holy sites. But Saladin brought the Muslims a new victory: they crushed the Crusader army at Karnei Hattin and Jerusalem again fell into Muslim hands.

Chapter 5: The Second Crusader Kingdom (1187-1270). Richard the Lionhearted laid siege to Acre and eventually conquered the city before signing a peace treaty with Saladin, securing for Christians the right to make a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, which remained in Muslim hands. This period saw many more European crusades and battles for control of various parts of the Holy Land.

Chapter 6: The Mameluke Conquest (1260-1516). The Ayyubids had ruled in Syria, Egypt, and most of the Holy Land until the Mameluke revolt in 1250. The Mongols twice invaded the Holy Land during this period. The Mamelukes eventually recovered their control of the Holy Land and erased all vestiges of the Crusader kingdom and coastal cities like Acre and Jaffa for fear that they would serve as centers of support for new crusades.

Chapter 7: Under Ottoman Rule (1516-1798). The Turkish conquest of the Holy Land in 1516 came after Turkey conquered Persia and Syria. The Ottomans ruled in Jerusalem and the Holy Land for four centuries but made few changes to the buildings and infrastructure, which were neglected. The rise of religious fervor during the Counter-Reformation in the 17th century brought a sharp rise in the number of pilgrims to the Holy Land. But the pilgrims who arrived in the 18th century were more interested in the Holy Land’s antiquities, inhabitants, geography, flora, and fauna.

Chapter 8: Into the Nineteenth Century (1798-1831). Napolean succeeded in conquering Jaffa, Gaza, and other areas, but suffered major losses at the city of Acre. For most of this period, the Holy Land was divided into two Ottoman provinces whose borders varied according to the military strength of their governors. Internal divisions and tribal factionalism resulted in decreased security in the area, which greatly limited the number of pilgrims traveling to the Holy Land.

Chapter 9: The Advent of the Modern Age (1831-1876). Egypt’s Ibrahim Pasha led the army to conquer the Holy Land and tried to implement a strong centralized administration according to the Egyptian model of governance. The new rules caused popular discontent that culminated in the Peasant Rebellion. In 1840, a large British fleet came to the aid of an uprising against the Egyptians in the Lebanon Mountains. The Holy Land was then returned to Turkish rule. With the advent of steamboat travel and improved security on the roads, tourism to the Holy Land flourished.

Chapter 10: The Sunset of the Ottoman Empire (1876-1917). The Turkish ruler Abed El-Hamid attempted to unite the Turks and Arabs throughout the Ottoman Empire. The 1908 rebellion of the Young Turks brought Turkish nationalist ideals to the fore as Arab nationalism was also on the rise. Because Turkey changed its foreign policy to ally itself with Germany rather than Britain, it suffered with Germany’s defeat in World War I. The economic situation in Europe and the Holy Land improved and this brought more European pilgrims.

Chapter XI: Twentieth Century Pilgrimage (from 1917 onward). The enormous development of transportation methods in the twentieth century completely changed the nature of pilgrimage from a dangerous and arduous journey to an increasingly comfortable tourist excursion. During the first half of the century, the British Empire ruled Palestine and established an efficient rail system and a non-sectarian, non-sovereign body to preserve the various holy and archeological sites in the Holy Land. In 1947 the UN terminated the British Mandate and, in 1948, the State of Israel was established. Jordan controlled East Jerusalem and the Old City, with most of the Christian holy places, and Israel controlled West Jerusalem, Nazareth, Mount Tabor, and the Galilee. Hostility between Jordan and Israel forced pilgrims to choose between visiting holy places in the Hashemite Kingdom and those in Israel. After the Six Day War in 1967, all of the Christian holy sites came under the control of Israel, which guaranteed that adherents of each religion would have access to its holy sites.

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How was the album conceived and created?

The adages “History repeats itself” and “There is nothing new under the sun” acquire new meaning when we view history through a contemporary lens. If events that took place hundreds or thousands of years ago were covered in today’s newspapers, would the headlines and articles look very different from the news that we read today?

If a contemporary journalist traveled back in time 2,000 years to report on major historical events in the Holy Land, from the birth of Jesus all the way to present times, what would the articles look like? Would the terms “historical” or “revolutionary” be used, even without the benefit of a deep historical perspective?

This is how the idea for a historical news album arose: out of an intellectual curiosity and a wish to see 2,000 years of history brought to life in a colorful, engaging, and accessible news format, rather than presented as a dry historical recitation of countless events comprising so much human drama and change. The Chronicle of Pilgrimage to the Holy Land transforms dense and complicated historical documentation into a light, readable, and sensational experience that makes ancient events feel as if they just happened.

The stories of the Holy Land’s history are narrated in the form of newspaper accounts that are based on extensive historical and archival research. The book’s page layout follows a visually welcoming, newspaper-like format that is further enhanced by richly colorful pictures and illustrations. The reader is drawn in to each news story by intriguing headlines that are animated by beautiful images, and fascinating human and historical dramas.

Many of the headlines that appear in this historical news album could have appeared in a modern day tabloid newspaper. For example:

Arabs Destroy Holy Monasteries (page 64)
Earthquake Rocks Bethlehem (page 71)
Women Join Crusades (page 98)
Want to Be a Pilgrim? Show me the Money! (page 133)
Napoleon: "At the Gates of Acre, My Luck Ran Out." (page 167)
Greek Orthodox Sect Faces Bankruptcy (page 177)
The Holy City Surrenders to the British (page 236)

The headlines and news stories are written in such an animated and contemporaneous way that they transport the reader back in time, watching empires rise and fall as they try to control the most fought over and sacred land that human history has ever known. The reader experiences 2,000 years of history in an energized and exciting way, witnessing – through the lens of an unforgettable book format – all of the events that helped to define the Holy Land and make it what it is today. Never before has such a personal and dramatic encounter with the history, people, and places of the Holy Land been possible.
The colorful players on the stage of history seem to have had life breathed into them by this historical album. Readers will find themselves alongside the people who made or experienced history, struggling with the difficulties that they encounter along the way and tumbling into the midst of their adventures, fighting alongside knights in violent religious wars, sitting by powerful leaders as they negotiate a truce, and sharing the risks and enthusiasm of ordinary pilgrims as they face mortal dangers just to view the holy places with their own eyes and wonder at the inhabitants of the Holy Land and their exotic customs.

Creating The Chronicle of Pilgrimage to the Holy Land involved extensive historical and archival research including the perusal of dozens of scholarly articles about pilgrimage to the Holy Land, ancient manuscripts, the testimony left by pilgrims who arrived in the Holy Land over the millennia, and historical accounts of the Holy Land during past epochs. Researchers who worked on the book (some of whom were doctoral candidates in history), delved deep into history books and rummaged through ancient manuscript collections, archives, universities, and libraries around the world in order to collect the most interesting testimonies, events, stories, illustrations, and pictures relating to the subject of pilgrimage to the Holy Land. The book’s editors first decided on the news items to be inserted into a particular page of the album and then determined the scope and size of the article and image relating to that particular piece of history. Writers and graphic editors then collaborated to perform the related research and writing and the graphical layout for that page, much as the editorial team of a top daily newspaper meets to decide how to publish the news of the day.

The writing of the articles would begin with the “raw data” produced by in depth research on the topic at hand, which might be a lengthy academic paper, detailed research notes, and/or an entire book on the subject. This raw data was then organized and condensed into a more digestible and user-friendly size and submitted to a professional journalist who was responsible for editing it further, just like with newspapers articles. An appropriate and sometimes even sensational headline was assigned to each article. Over 500 journalistic articles were created, in addition to detailed historical overviews that introduce each chapter and put the entire period into a wider chronological context. For each article, one or more images were selected to animate the story and give it additional layers of meaning and authenticity.  Of course, when creating journalistic articles about events that took place a long time ago, it is not always possible to get a photo from the time of the event itself. However, when the editorial team could not obtain a photograph from the actual event or place, they were able to find a relevant picture, illustration, map, lithograph, or other image, adding a powerfully visual context to the incident, place, or period. In all, the book contains over 1,100 images.
The work of locating appropriate images was the hardest part of developing this historical news album. The visual materials were taken from hundreds of private and public archives and ancient manuscripts in some of the most renowned international libraries in the world. In addition to historical pictures and illustrations that were gathered up from ancient manuscripts, photographers were sent to photograph sites in which the various events took place. In addition, hundreds of pictures were purchased from various archives and photographers. Historians, heads of the various church denominations, and professionals from the publishing world all expressed their enthusiasm for the finished product and its innovative and unique concept, which brings millennia of history to life in a fascinating, succinct and enjoyable way.

In short, The Chronicle of Pilgrimage to the Holy Land serves as a time machine, taking readers back through all of the exciting and dramatic events that helped to shape the Holy Land as it exists today, where the 2,000 year story continues to unfold.

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His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI - El papa Benedicto XVI [LINK to photo with the Pope blessing the book]
"It is a wonderful historical book about the Holy Land and it is a beautiful album...Every Christian must have it."

Fr. Ya'coub Abou Sa'da, the Parish Priest of Bethlehem
“[The book] is a fascinating journey through the most captivating places in history. This piece of art is a must have book for every Catholic family. Pilgrimage to the Holy Land is [only] a dream for many people, [but] now you can journey through the land of the Bible in picture and short article [form] that is brilliantly produced."

Dr. Bert Engelfriet Ph.D.
"This book gives a lively overview of twenty centuries of the Christian journey of faith. The thematic approach of the book makes for an original book that stands out among the abundant literature about the theme. It paints in words and pictures a representative image of the story of Christian pilgrimage. The use of images of antique paintings and modern photographic techniques is very successful…”

By Mr. Emmanuel Helou - Belgian Consulate in Israel
“Today I would like to record my high admiration for the book which you have presented to me. “The Chronicle of Pilgrimage the Holy Land” is a guide book par excellence. I have seen several publications of the sort, but this one has got a special colour, a special taste. It is a fine addition to my Library. The volume as a matter of fact covers a wide range of chapters. What earned my attention most, is a whole chapter about the Crusades – that part of History of which I feel so attracted. The illustrations are just superb.