Andrew CA Jampoler: Sailors in the Holy Land November 3, 2010

Author Andrew C.A. Jampoler will be on hand to sign copies of 'Sailors in the Holy Land: The 1848 American Expedition to the Dead Sea and the Search for Sodom and Gomorrah.' Ordered to fix the exact elevation of the Dead Sea and to collect scientific specimens, the expedition was the Navy's first and last to the storied salt lake of the Old Testament. Drawing on his extensive research in Turkey, Jordan, and Israel, the author presents not only first-time details of the expedition but also sets the expedition into a colorful context of biblical story and of the great events of the mid-nineteenth century, including global epidemic disease, political revolution in Europe, the collapse of Ottoman imperial rule, and the secularization of America.