It is remarkable that the three great `Religions of the Book,' Judaism, Christianity and Islam, should all have been nurtured in that Near Eastern region we know today as modern Palestine or Israel. Geographically the Holy Land stodd at the crossroads of many cultures, bounded as it was by the opulence of Egypt, the grandeur of Babylon, the lands of the desert dwellers and the eastern Mediterranean. The movements, conflicts and interactions of these peoples produced a multi-racial, multi-ethnic society which has a rich legacy of culture and religion for mankind. Here Johnson surveys the history of this complex corner of the world, from 3000BC to the time of the Crusades.