From the Holy Mountain

I've read at least 4 of William Dalrymple's books - mostly about India. I like him and asked him what book of his he suggested I read next. He said this one. So here it is.

William Dalrymple follows the path of a monk from the 6th century A.D., John Moschos, who wrote about his visits to monasteries across the Middle East. Many of the monasteries still exist as of the 1997 writing of this book.

This book provides a fascinating look at the state of Christianity in Greece, Turkey, Syria, Israel, and Egypt. Dalrymple seeks to find out if the Christian presence has died out from persecution, migration, expulsion or other reasons. In Egypt, he tied together iconography from Egyptian Copts and that found in Ireland and Scotland. That section alone was worth the entire book.