Outgoing College of Architecture Dean Alan Balfour's highly original history of Solomon’s Temple and Islam’s Dome of the Rock doubles as a social and cultural history of the region. "I write cultural history from the evidence of building and cities," Balfour says, "and I focus on settings of significant conflict to examine the underlying causes." The Temple Mount, the site of numerous structures and shrines considered holy both by Christians and Muslims, is certainly one of the most contested places on earth.

Dean Balfour's erudite but highly accessible work is based on sources located in religious texts, archives and museums in the Middle East and elsewhere, and most significantly at the sites of the holy places themselves. For example he writes that "I reconstructed the events leading up to Christ's arrest by walking over and over again the paths that He would have travelled. . ."  An integral feature of the book-- one that betrays Balfour's roots in architectural history -- is its lavish illustrations. Particularly in the impressive Kindle edition, readers can explore a set of incredibly rich reproductions of lithographs, paintings, and architectural drawings. Far from just being "eye candy," the meanings, symbolism, and sometimes distortions conveyed by these images contribute to the overall arc of the narrative.