So much is known about Palestine in late antiquity, from abundant literary sources (mainly patristic and rabbinic) and now extensive archaeological findings that a comprehensive account could not be condensed into a single volume. The present work is unavoidably selective, and focused on a restricted, but historically crucial, theme: the complex relations between the ethnic and religious groups – Christian, pagan, Samaritan and Jewish – that shared the space of this small region and regularly competed, often to the point of violent conflict. No attempt is made to present a complete narrative of late antique Palestine, either chronologically or by city or subregion (in this respect, the book title is a little misleading); instead, the book offers a series of thematic chapters that explore aspects of inter-ethnic, religious and cultural conflict and/or accommodation. But although devoid of any systematic presentation of the political, social or economic history of Palestine, or even of the various forms of Christianity, Judaism and other religions and cults that underlie the social relations and conflicts under study, this book offers a good deal of information on the general history of Palestine and its peoples, and conveys it effectively through an original, somewhat unconventional thematic medium.

The contents of this work are rich, but organised in a disconcerting way. Chapter headings are not all transparent; selection of materials, within each chapter, follows lines of argument that are not always predictable or clear. Thus chapter ii, ‘The periphery of dreams and deserts’, provides a fascinating and highly informative account of the monks, ascetics, pilgrims, as well as Jews and Saracens in the southern regions of the Sinai and the Negev, but then jumps rather surprisingly to the Golan – only because this region, otherwise very different in geographical as well as in socio-historical terms, could also be categorised as a ‘periphery’. The title of chapter iii, ‘Recalcitrance, riots, and rebellion: the Samaritans and the emergence of intolerance’, rightly suggests that this chapter is on the Samaritans, yet an important section on the same subject appears later on (pp. 167–75) in a chapter entitled rather blandly ‘Contesting the sacred: forms of ritualized violence’ (ch. iv). Vignettes of Gaza in earlier chapters (pp. 42–4, 161–3) would have been more usefully placed together with the extensive treatment of the city at the end of the book (pp. 328–47). In short, this book will not function well as a reference work, because the user will have difficulty finding what s/he needs, or finding it all in one place; it is rather meant to be read, and readers must be prepared to drift rather freely from one subject to the next. The author may eschew the traditional historiographical narrative, but ultimately, it is a pretty good narrative that she presents. In spite of an overloaded, bombastic style that leads, at times, to obscure or infelicitous turns of phrases (for example, p. 65: ‘horizons of centrality’), this book, meandering through the complexities of late antique Palestinian culture, is an enjoyable and compelling read.

The author's erudition is evident on almost every page, and so are her thought-provoking insights. Particularly innovative and interesting, for example, is the connection that she draws between dreams and sacred topography (ch. ii), the shifting boundaries and topography of what was regarded, in both traditions, as ‘holy land’ (ch. vi) and the religious appropriation of ‘cityscapes’ (ch. viii). Sivan also has the merit of drawing attention to the Samaritans (chs iii–iv), often ignored yet central to the history of Palestine in late antiquity. I remain a little dissatisfied, however, with her use of ancient and medieval literary sources, most of which remain, in my view, insufficiently problematised. Insufficient allowance is made for the fact that most of our information on Samaritans derives from much later, medieval chronicles; that the dates of Jewish liturgical texts such as the Haggadah (ch. vi) and many piyyutim (passim) are unknown and elusive; that rabbinic literature can never be used as straightforward factual evidence (as seems to be done for example at p. 27 n. 41), and likewise, many patristic writings (for example Epiphanius of Salamis, over-confidently used at p. 23). The appendix (‘A note on Jewish sources: pp. 362–5) is a corrective after-thought that does not really justify the liberal use of these sources in the main text. I am also uneasy about various shorthands, such as the unqualified use of the term ‘orthodox’ (for example p. 26 in the sense of Nicene – and passim) when elsewhere we learn that this label could be arrogated by opposing Christian ideologies (p. 73: Monophysites). I am bemused by the suggestion, based on another scholar's work, that the feast of the Theotokos (Mary) in fifth-century Jerusalem on 15 August coincided ‘precisely’ with the Jewish memorial of the destruction of the Temple on 9 Av (pp. 232–3, 239–40, on which the author builds a whole argument): in fact, since the Jewish calendar was lunar, the two dates would rarely have coincided, and sometimes they actually fell more than a month apart. Fictitious narratives are commonly employed by the author as a literary, didactic device (for example in ch. i, an imagined journey of Constantine through Palestine), but at her own peril: the depiction of an imagined Purim procession through Scythopolis around 400 (pp. 158–61) is a total anachronism, as Purim processions did not exist in Jewish tradition, at least not until the secular Adloyada parade was instituted in Tel-Aviv in 1912.

For Christians, Samaritans and Jews, Palestine was the land of the Bible and thus, in a sense, an embodiment of biblical history and sanctity. Sacred topography and the rituals associated with it were major factors in the development of pilgrimage, monasticism and Christian communities in the Holy Land but, as Sivan rightly shows, it was also cause for the many conflicts that flared up in Palestine, perhaps more than in other parts of the Roman Empire, between competing religious traditions. The present-day topicality of this inspiring book and its theme – even if one of the main protagonists in today's Palestinian conflicts, Islam, falls outside its scope – is a reminder of how little has changed in two millennia of human history.