HistFest: Seven Wonders by Bettany Hughes

This event took place on 11 April 2024. The information below is correct as of the publication date.

Their names still echo down the ages: The Great Pyramid at Giza. The Hanging Gardens of Babylon. The Temple of Artemis. The statue of Zeus at Olympia. The mausoleum of Halikarnassos. The Colossus at Rhodes. The Lighthouse of Alexandria. 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.

Join historian, broadcaster and author Bettany Hughes to celebrate the launch of her brand new, Sunday Times bestselling book, Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. During this dazzling evening, she’ll tour the landscapes of both ancient and modern times. Exploring traces of the Wonders themselves, she’ll ask: Why do we wonder? Why do we create? And, why do we choose to remember the wonder of others?

This event is chaired by historian, author and director of HistFest, Rebecca Rideal.

Bettany Hughes is an award-winning historian, author and broadcaster whose 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.

Rebecca Rideal is a historian, award-winning podcast and TV producer, and the author of 1666: Plague, War and Hellfire. A fellow of the Royal Historical Society, Rebecca writes regularly for press and contributes to radio and television documentaries. She is the founder of the London-based history festival, HistFest, and tutors at the University of Oxford's Department for Continuing Education, as well as Stanford University in Oxford.

In association with HistFest