Best-selling author and TV historian Bettany Hughes will be in conversation with Caillan Davenport on her book The Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, a revelatory new history of the ancient world told through its seven greatest monuments.

Longlisted for The Anglo-Hellenic League Runciman Award 2025 The 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, 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.

'A wondrous wonderful achievement' Steven Fry. 'Fascinating...all told with Bettany's natural sense of wonder and adventure' Simon Sebag Montefiore

‘From the Great Pyramid at Giza to the Hanging Gardens of Babylon, a thrilling journey in the footsteps of the ancients’. The Guardian

Bettany Hughes OBE FSA is an award-winning historian, author and broadcaster. A graduate of Oxford University, she has taught at both Oxford and Cambridge Universities. 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.

Professor Caillan Davenport is Professor of Classics and Head of the Centre for Classical Studies at the Australian National University. Caillan has an undergraduate and master's degree from the University of Queensland and a doctorate in ancient history from Oxford University. He is a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy and a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society. He has recently been awarded an ARC Future Fellowship for the project 'Why Monarchy Endures. Answers from the Ancient Mediterranean World'. He is a regular contributor to the ‘Emperors of Rome Podcast’, which was named Best Australian History Podcast in 2019 by Apple. A prolific author, his next book, Talking about the Caesars: How Romans Imagined their Emperors, is forthcoming with Yale University Press

The vote of thanks will be given by Emeritus Professor, Classics & Ancient History, Elizabeth Minchin FAHA

This event is in association with Harry Hartog Bookshop. Books will be available for purchase on the evening in the Cultural Centre foyer. Pre-event book signings will be available from 6.30pm and again after the event.

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A podcast will be made available after the event.

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