The title of this book foreshadows the rather complex tale that Andrew C.A. Jampoler, a retired naval aviator and author, sets out to narrate. It would have sufficed for Jampoler to have dealt with the fascinating events surrounding the 1848 American expedition to the Dead Sea, but the additional “tease” of “the Search for Sodom and Gomorrah” gives a small taste of this epic tome. The actual events of the twenty-two day expedition might have warranted a much shorter work. In a way, the expedition serves as a pretext for Jampoler's larger thesis, which is that this expedition represented, at least in part, American Zeitgeist of the period. In place of what might have been a rather dry accounting, Jampoler presents a dizzying window of topics. These topics are diverse: the beginnings of biblical archaeology in the Near East, U.S. naval and shipbuilding history, world politics of the era, eating/drinking and health habits of sailors, folkloric and artistic renderings of the period (including discussion of Mark Twain and David Roberts), and 19th-century medicine and medical facilities (including specific treatment of smallpox, fleas, cholera, tuberculosis, and dysentery). Unfortunately, these and a host of other digressions threaten to distract from the actual telling of the 1848 tale.

Seemingly focusing on the U.S. Navy expedition led by Lieutenant William F. Lynch to survey the Jordan River and Dead Sea in boats of copper and galvanized iron, Jampoler tells a tale of almost everything else that was happening in midcentury worldwide. The crew left New York on 27 November 1847 and returned to port on 8 December 1848 (over one year!). Despite the mission's length and the death of one expedition member, the expedition was clearly successful. Lynch's party came ashore on the Mediterranean coast of Palestine in April 1848; expedition members continued their work through May, when they finally began the trek back to meet their ship. Unfortunately for the one casualty of the expedition, Lieutenant Dale, they were unable to meet up with their ship until the end of July. Jampoler's recounting of the individuals in the small team, including a small army of hired local Arabs, provides backdrop to the drama, which was at times a comedy of near-epic proportions. To be sure, the expedition did complete a scientific mapping of the area that continued to be accurate through this century and fulfilled its ultimate scientific goal of establishing the actual elevation of the Dead Sea (1312 feet below sea level, the lowest place on Earth), which up until then was widely speculated. Regarding the “search” for Sodom and Gomorrah, however, the reader will be left searching in vain for anything other than digression.

The Lynch expedition has been cited in several works on the Dead Sea region, but none have provided as much detail and depth of interpretation as this work. Sailors in the Holy Land is a rich book, one that, despite the many digressions (even for an experienced reader many will prove distracting), brings to life this historical event in a way that no other author has succeeding in doing. Jampoler is both writer and social historian, searching out the meta-reasons for the expeditions undertaken by Lynch and other explorers during the 19th and early 20th centuries. He follows Lynch from the end of the expedition through the publishing of his magnum opus, Narrative of the United States Expedition to the River Jordan and the Dead Sea (Philadelphia, Pa.: Lea & Blanchard, 1850), and his autobiographical work, Naval Life, or Observations Afloat and on Shore (1851), and right up to his Civil War service in the Confederate navy and his death. Jampoler explores Lynch's state of mind, personal life, and religious upbringing as reasons for his original 1847 expedition proposal. Lynch's work had enormous long-term significance for future explorations on the Dead Sea, providing vital background for the 20th-century discoveries and excavations at Masada, the Dead Sea Scrolls caves at and near Qumran, the nearby Bar Kokhba caves, those at Tiberias and around the Sea of Galilee, as well as at Akko, Jericho, and Ein Gedi.

Jampoler obviously did wide-ranging research and preparation for this book, including visits to many of the sites he writes about (at some points the reader is given modern road designations and other sites of interest). However, the book does not fulfill its promise as a serious investigation into questions surrounding Sodom and Gomorrah. A serious investigation of the work of geologists and seismologists in the region might have added to the list of digressions but would also have added substance to the issue raised in Jampoler's subtitle. In fairness, one chapter is devoted to the issue of Sodom and Gomorrah, but the arguments there are perhaps a little forced and lack the depth found elsewhere in the book.