Aist's book centers on three related Latin texts from the fifth, seventh, and eighth centuries which all focus on the city of Jerusalem, some of which are better known in the existing scholarship than others. This innovative study sets out to analyze the city of Jerusalem as it is presented by these pilgrim texts, examining the topography of the Holy City itself alongside the image of the city as it was described and imagined by three authors. Indeed, Eucherius, Adomnán, and Bede were all geographically removed from Jerusalem when writing and never actually set foot in the city.

The approach to the material presented in From Topography to Text is both interesting and innovative. It is extraordinarily useful to bring together the works of Eucherius, Adomnán, and Bede, as they provide rich comparative material for each other and also inform each other in some unexpected ways, as Aist ably demonstrates in this impressive study. The interrelationship and textural and conceptual debts that exist between the texts of De locis sanctis as constructed by Adomnán and Bede are well studied, but setting these works against the earlier writings of Eucherius has enabled Aist to make some progressive statements about the individual texts as well as to reconsider how they might be understood as they are set in relation to each other. Through his detailed and careful study of these textual sources, in addition to his groundbreaking methodology of examining the source material through topographical detail and knowledge of the city itself, Aist has produced a work that presents a complex rethinking of these texts and their usual scholarly reception.

Despite the undoubted value of the individual studies of the Jerusalemic writings of Eucharius and Bede—and the utterly persuasive suggestion made by Aist that it is the writings of Eucherius, rather than Adomnán as more frequently suggested in the study of these texts, that forms the basis for the Bedan rewriting of De locis sanctis—it is perhaps in its reassessment of Adomnán's version of De locis sanctis where this study is most strikingly original. Indeed, From Topography to Text functions as an important paratext to established readings of Adomnán's De locis sanctis—namely to those works by Thomas O'Loughlin. Through painstaking topographical examination of Adomnán's text, Aist seeks to verify the provenance of Adomnán's topographical material, namely, to support the text itself: the text tells its reader that it is based upon the oral report of the Gaulish Bishop Arculf who recently returned from Jerusalem and thus acts as the originator of De locis sanctis. Aist's support for Arculf being an historical figure, rather than a textual trope as suggested by O'Loughlin, offers intriguing possibilities. If he was a real, flesh and blood pilgrim, rather than a literary figment, then his discourse on the Holy Places is one that was based in his experience, which lends the topographic places and spaces of the text a new immediacy. This suggestion is made in the face of other scholarly suggestions proposing Arculf to be a textual device created by Adomnán to lend authority to his text. Aist's argument here is persuasive, but so too are those made by O'Loughlin. Nevertheless, in setting out this project to rehabilitate Arculf, Aist has certainly added further layers of nuance to the scholarly appreciation of Adomnán's text.

If there is one jarring note in this study, with its careful textual analysis and innovative topographical study—all supported by extremely useful illustrations and tables—it would perhaps be Appendix 2. I found this addition to the discussion slightly unnecessary in a study of this caliber, as it roundly repeats the argument (made persuasively elsewhere in the book) that refutes O'Loughlin's approach to Adomnán's text. The point is well made in the relevant chapter, and this appendix felt like a remnant from the doctoral research which informed this work—a little redundant in the fully fleshed, autonomous, and convincing study presented here, but it by no means diminished the value of the whole.

That said, this is a rich and valuable study that has much to offer those interested in Jerusalem, pilgrim texts, topography, the construction of sacred spaces, the perception and reception of the Holy Land in the Medieval period, and many other topics. This book provides both a rethinking and revisiting of the Jerusalemic accounts of Eucherius, Adomnán, and Bede, which is equally valuable to those familiar with these texts and for those encountering them for the first time. It offers an ample scope for those familiar with the source material to reevaluate their assumptions and ideas. For those who are newly discovering Jerusalem through the eyes and imaginations of these authors, it offers a vibrant evaluation of these presentations: the unfolding of the topography of Jerusalem combined with rich close readings of the text make these writings and spaces quite literally approachable for the reader. It is a really dynamic contribution to the field.