“For far too long, the Great Revolt has been overlooked in the grand sweep of history. Stephen Dando-Collins finally gives this epochal event the focus it deserves, and in the way that only he can. Full of tragedy and triumph, heartbreak and heroism, Conquering Jerusalem deftly balances masterful storytelling with exquisite attention to detail. This book is a must read to understand this conflict, which still reverberates to this day.”

—PHILLIP BARLAG, author of Evil Roman Emperors, The History of Rome in 12 Buildings, and The Leadership Genius of Julius Caesar

“The first Jewish-Roman War of 66–73 CE was a struggle that had enormous consequences, not only for Jews, but for Western Civilization as a whole. Before the war, Jews belonged to many sects: there were Pharisees, Sadducees, Essenes, Zealots, along with smaller groups like the monastics of Qumran and the followers of Jesus of Nazareth. Like a meteor, the war extinguished everything except the Pharisees, ancestors of rabbinic Judaism, and the Christians of the Greek and Latin speaking provinces touched by Saint Paul. The war itself was a complex event: the struggle between the various factions among the Jews made it almost as much a civil war as a war against Rome. Meanwhile the Roman Empire was in a state of civil war itself in 69 CE when, at the death of the emperor Nero, military leaders from all parts of the Empire sought, and briefly succeeded, in establishing themselves in the center of political power. It was Vespasian, the general sent by Nero to put down the Jewish revolt, who reestablished stability in Rome and founded the new Flavian dynasty of emperors, while his son Titus, at the head of his father’s legions, brought the struggle to its fiery conclusion. Stephen Dando-Collins tells this story in Conquering Jerusalem as a rip-roaring yarn that clarifies both the complexities of combat and the political maneuvers that influenced the outcome of the military struggle.”

—DAVID RICHTER, professor emeritus at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York

“A gripping and pacy account of the Great Jewish Revolt against the might of Rome from its chaotic inception to the final destruction and levelling of Jerusalem in AD 70. Stephen Dando Collins narrates his well-researched account of the complex and often harrowing events with a punchy clarity. One can’t help thinking that the revolt might have succeeded were it not for the extreme level of factionalism and infighting that beset the Jewish cause from beginning to end.”

—PAUL N. PEARSON, author of Maximinus Thrax: From Common Soldier to Emperor of Rome