The Dead Sea: Myth, History, and Politics

Barbara Kreiger's The Dead Sea: Myth, History, and Politics is a scholarly study, published by Brandeis University Press, of the Dead Sea's significance across mythic, historical and modern political registers, tracing how the same body of water has functioned as a biblical symbol, a site of ancient and modern industry and a contested modern political geography. Kreiger's authority rests on combining literary and historical source work with attention to the region's contemporary political stakes. Its strength is exactly that range, connecting ancient religious symbolism to present day environmental and political concerns in one study. Its limit is that a study covering myth, history and politics together in one relatively compact volume necessarily treats each register with less depth than a dedicated specialist study of any one of them alone would provide.