In this acclaimed account, Barbara Tuchman reveals that today s troubles in the Middle East originated long before the first efforts at founding a modern state of Israel. Historically, the British were drawn to the Holy Land by two major influences: the translation of the Bible into English and, later, the imperial need to control the road to India and access to Middle East oil. With the lucidity and vividness that characterizes her work, Barbara Tuchman brings to life the development of these dual motives the Bible and the sword in the consciousness of the British people, until they were finally brought together at the end of World War I, when the Balfour Declaration of 1917 established a British-sponsored national home for the modern survivors of the people of the Old Testament.