Jordan

by Sue Rollin and Jane Streetly

Book Overview

Jordan is a country of contrasts, with spectacular mountains and vast deserts crossed by dramatic canyons. This new Blue Guide details Jordan's rich historical heritage - sights include the stunning... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0713646462
• ISBN13: 9780713646467
• Release Date: January 1998
• Publisher: A&C Black
• Length: 256 Pages
• Weight: 0.75 lbs.

Customer Reviews

Don't Leave for Jordan Without It

Jordan is a country that is known to most Westerners mainly for its front-line role in the Arab-Israeli conflict; for the spectacular Nabataean temples carved into cliff-faces at Petra; and as the scene of Lawrence of Arabia's adventures during the First World War. Now that it has a formal peace treaty with Israel, more westerners are making their way to Jordan. Those who do will find the Blue Guide to Jordan an invaluable companion. I also recommend it highly to armchair travelers who just want to learn more about this little-known but intriguing country.As a series, the Blue Guides have long been famous among discriminating travelers for their astonishingly comprehensive coverage of history, archaeology, architecture, and art. At the same time, the series was known for its refusal to make any concessions to the mass market: Blue Guides typically had no information on hotels and restaurants, and while they always offered superb plans of archaeological sites and museums, they had no photographs or other illustrations, and their covers appeared never to have been run past a graphics designer. Moreover, while written in clear and impeccable English, the understated texts rarely offered much in the way of color or afforded any glimpse of the personality of their author or authors.All that began to change around fifteen years ago, and the Blue Guide to Jordan is a wonderful example of new model Blue Guides. The series has hung on to all that was good in its original approach while adding drawings, photographs, practical information, and a more engaging and colorful text.The Blue Guide to Jordan provides unexcelled coverage of Jordan's best-known sites - Petra and its environs are treated in no less than 45 pages, while 14 pages are devoted to the Roman ruins at Jerash (Gerasa). But the real riches of this guide lie in its coverage of lesser-known sites - the Omayyad palaces strung like pearls across the desert between Jordan's international airport and the oasis at Azraq; the black basalt Byzantine ghost town of Umm al-Jimal; the Crusader cave stronghold of al-Habis Jaldak; the enigmatic Chalcolithic site of Jawa, dating to 3000 B.C., its massive walls looming over the "Black Desert"; or the mysterious and tragic mountain refuge of Sela. The Blue Guide to Jordan will also teach you that the legendary biblical cities of Sodom and Gomorrah are to be identified with the Bronze Age tells of Bab edh-Dhra and Numeira in the Dead Sea valley, both of which were destroyed by fire around 2350 B.C. The authors note that "The destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah may preserve the memory of an earthquake, a not uncommon event in the Rift Valley, perhaps causing some of the bitumen there to ignite. As for Lot's wife, most travelers have managed to identify her somewhere among the strange crystalline salt formations."Another highlight is the Guide's meticulous coverage of the 5000-year-old King's Highway through the mountains of Moab on the eastern side of the