The Seven Wonders of the Ancient World

Bettany Hughes

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The Sunday Times Bestseller

'A wondrous wonderful achievement' STEPHEN FRY

Longlisted for The Anglo-Hellenic League Runciman Award 2025The Seven Wonders of the World were staggeringly audacious impositions on our planet. They were also brilliant adventures of the mind, test cases for the reaches of human imagination.

Now only the great pyramid remains fully standing, yet the scale and majesty of these seven wonders still enthral us today. In a thrilling, colourful narrative enriched with the latest archaeological discoveries, bestselling historian Bettany Hughes walks through the landscapes of both ancient and modern time. This is a journey whose purpose is to ask why we wonder, why we create, why we choose to remember the wonder of others. She explores traces of the Wonders themselves, and the traces they have left in history. A magisterial work of historical storytelling, The Seven Wonders of the Ancient World reinforces the exciting and nourishing notion that humans can make the impossible happen.

'Fantastic...a joy from the outset' PETER FRANKOPAN

'Fascinating...all told with Bettany's natural sense of wonder and adventure' SIMON SEBAG MONTEFIORE

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Praise for The Seven Wonders of the Ancient World

  • Bettany Hughes is the most perfect tour guide I know. Her boundless enthusiasm, clarity and learning combined with a matchless gift for storytelling bring the Wonders of the World leapingly alive. A wondrous wonderful achievement. - Stephen FryA thrilling armchair journey from a very wise woman. Bettany Hughes is the eighth wonder of the world - Lucy Worsley, author of Agatha ChristieA lively exploration of the ancient world, this fascinating book is brimming with stories of people and places, all told with Bettany's natural sense of wonder and adventure. - Simon Sebag Montefiore, author of The World: A Family HistoryThis is an entrancing book, at once a love letter to the ancient world and a learned introduction to some of the most astonishing feats of imagination and engineering in human history. It is a pleasure to wander lost realms and inspect (mostly) vanished marvels through Bettany Hughes' bright and erudite writing. - Dan Jones, author of Powers and Thrones: A New History of the Middle AgesHughes not only rebuilds the wonders themselves in the reader's imagination, but also vividly conjures up the culture and environment in which they existed. It is a tale of people as well as places, and I loved learning about what the wonders meant to those who built and visited them - Elodie Harper, author of The Wolf DenSo vividly written that it is as if the reader is there . . . A dazzling achievement - Tracy BormanEvery page of this generously illustrated travelogue yields a treasure house of information and reflection on Egyptian, Babylonian and Greek masterworks of architecture, urban planning and sculpture - Paul Cartledge, author of Thebes: The Forgotten City of Ancient GreeceInformed by careful research and enriched by inspired prose, this book is itself a wonder. Bettany Hughes has given new and powerful meaning to the ancient world's most iconic monuments. - James Romm, author of Dying Every Day: Seneca at the Court of Nero

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Bettany Hughes

Bettany Hughes

Bettany Hughes is an award-winning historian, author and broadcaster. Her previous books include Venus and Aphrodite (shortlisted for the Runciman Award), Istanbul (a Sunday Times bestseller and shortlisted for the Runciman Award), The Hemlock Cup (a New York Times bestseller and shortlisted for the Writers Guild award) and Helen Of Troy. All her books have been translated into multiple languages. She has made many documentaries for the BBC, Channel 4, PBS, National Geographic, ABC and the Discovery and History channels. Bettany has been a Professor at the New College of Humanities and Research Fellow at King's College London. She has been honoured with numerous awards including the Medlicott Medal for services to history, Europe's Cultural Heritage Prize and an OBE for services to history.

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