Something happened 2,700 years ago in a corner of the Assyrian Empire, and according to Montreal journalist Henry Aubin, it was vitally important to the development of Judaism, Christianity, Islam, and our modern world. In 701 BC, Jerusalem was at the mercy of a powerful Assyrian army. For unexplained reasons, the Assyrians suddenly went home, sparing the city and its populace and allowing Judaism to mature. Old Testament accounts credit this to divine intervention, and scholars have taken this to mean that disease swept through the Assyrian camp.

Henry Aubin has a different theory. In great detail and supported by impressive scholarship, Aubin claims that the Assyrians withdrew because they were threatened by a powerful army from Egypt. Significantly, this was an army of Kushites, black Africans, who just this once swept out of their continent to alter world history. Aubin’s purposes are twofold: he wants to convince scholars of the validity of his theory and he wants to write a book that will interest the general public.

As far as a non-specialist can tell, Aubin succeeds in his first aim. His theses are logical and supported by a wealth of detail from primary sources. He takes five chapters to lay out his six proofs of Kushite involvement, and his endnotes are sometimes intriguing reading in their own right.

Aubin is less successful in accomplishing his second aim. The Rescue of Jerusalem is well written and packed with interesting details. The book’s third section, which covers the reasons recent scholars have tended to overlook the Kushites, pinpoints an imperialistic racism in historical research and is especially fascinating. However, the very density of information and the lack of illustrations may limit the book’s appeal to a general readership. That said, The Rescue of Jerusalem remains an important study of a significant, yet often ignored, historical event.