Revealing the Holy Land

the long version

Throughout the last half of the nineteenth century, the Holy Land drew legions of photographers: amateurs recording a stop on the Grand Tour, academics pursuing archeological theories, military surveyors - all trying to capture the truthfulness of a land that had enormous spiritual, emotional, and political connotations for most of the Western world. What they saw, and how they saw it, are the themes of Kathleen Stewart Howe's essay and this rare and remarkable collection of photographs.