Given the twenty-first century association between the Holy Land and the Bible, we may assume that such a relationship just exists, and that the land is like the Book and contains a timeless quality. Eothen requires us to question this supposition. Alexander Kinglake describes a Palestine which is largely a wilderness on the verge of being defined by the political and religious forces of the west. He offers us a glimpse into the past to a society and place as it began to engage with Europe, and with the West.