Until now, few have known the true story of the house that became the American Colony Hotel, a retreat for foreign correspondents, diplomats, pilgrims and spies, or its bizarre history of tragedy, religious extremism, emotional blackmail, and peculiar sexual practices.

After suffering personal tragedy in the years following the Civil War, a prominent lawyer Horatio Spafford and his blue-eyed wife Anna rode the mighty wave of Protestant evangelicalism deluging the nation. Their charismatic leadership attracted followers eager to believe the Spaffords’ prophecy that the Second Coming was at hand. In 1881, the Spaffords and their followers sailed to Jerusalem to see the Messiah alight on the Mount of Olives.

The Americans who were already settled in the Holy City declared the colonists heretics and whispered of sexual deviance, but Muslims and Jews admired their unflagging care of the sick and the needy, and Jews were intrigued with their advocacy of a Jewish Return to Zion. When Horatio died, Anna assumed leadership, shocking even her adherents by abolishing marriage and established a dictatorship that was not always benevolent. Ever dogged by controversy, she and her credulous followers lived through and closely participated in the titanic upheavals that eventually formed the modern Middle East.

American Priestess provides a fascinating exploration of the seductive power of evangelicalism and raises questions about the manipulation of religion to serve personal goals.