The Seven Wonders of the Ancient World: An Extraordinary New Journey Through History’s Greatest Treasures

A historian and communicator of history on the page and screen, Hughes’s (Venus and Aphrodite) latest book about the ancient world explores wonder as an emotion shared by early and modern travelers to these structures and the notion of wonder lists as a trend that continues today harks back to the second century BCE. Hughes’s experience as a television presenter and narrator of previous audiobooks is evident as she unhurriedly unfolds an international Alexandrian tour around the seven sites consistently (though not always) inscribed on scraps of papyri on which our “relations across time” compiled their lists of the ancient world’s marvels. From the oldest and only intact wonder, the Great Pyramid at Giza, to the Pharos Lighthouse, Hughes leads listeners across time and place in a steady tone of rapt, enjoyable fascination. The author audibly respects her subjects, both the people who engaged in the sense-making, pseudo-spiritual practice of taxonomy (and sometimes nationalist boasting) and the people whose skills went into creations to provoke wonderment.