The Temple of Jerusalem, destroyed by the Romans nearly 2,000 years ago, has a unique hold on our imaginations. Not just a building, it is also a way of constructing a picture of humanity’s relation to the divine. Simon Goldhill engages with its long history of longing and grief, fantasy and power, artistic dreams and political machinations.

Why should anyone care about a writer’s house? Why do tourists flock to see where the Brontës lived or where Shakespeare was born? Simon Goldhill was invited by Chicago University Press to try and find out why we love to stare at Wordsworth’s desk or Freud’s couch or Charlotte Brontë’s underwear. His trip – four Jews on a train in search of an author’s house – is a funny, smart and reflective journey into our ideas of the self and our cultural values.

Benjamin Disraeli said, “The view of Jerusalem is the history of the world; it is more, it is the history of earth and of heaven.” Merav Mack presents Jerusalem as the locus where some of the world’s most enduring ideas were put into words, while Simon Goldhill provides a tour through the history of this most image-filled and ideology-laden city – from the Old City to the Holy Sepulchre. Raquel Ukeles chairs the conversation, exploring the central positon of Lib...