I received this book to review at no cost, from the publisher Hachette. It’s out now (trade paperback, $34.99).

As someone who has been keen on ancient history since forever, of course I was intrigued by a new book on the seven ancient wonders. And I’ve also read other work by Hughes, and enjoyed it, so that made me doubly intrigued.

Before I get into the book: of course there is controversy over this list. Hughes acknowledges that, and goes into quite a lot of detail about how the ‘canonical’ list came about – the first surviving mention of such a list, why lists were made, what other ‘wonders’ appeared on such lists in the ancient world of Greece and Rome, as well as what other monuments could be put on such a list were it made today. I appreciated this aspect a lot: it would have been easy to simply run with “the list everyone knows” (where ‘everyone’ is… you know), but she doesn’t. She puts it in context, and that’s an excellent thing.

In fact, context is the aspect of this book that I enjoyed the most. For each of the Wonders, Hughes discusses the geographical context – then and now; and the political, social, and religious contexts that enabled them to be made. This is pretty much what I was hoping for without realising it. And then she also talks about how people have reacted to, and riffed on, each of the Wonders since their construction, which is also a hugely important aspect of their continuing existence on the list.

• The Pyramids: the discussion of the exploration inside, by modern archaeologists, was particularly fascinating.
• The Hanging Gardens of Babylon: the discussion of whether they even existed, and if so where, and what ‘hanging’ actually meant, was intriguing.
• Temple of Artemis: I had no idea how big the structure was.
• Statue of Olympia: I had NO idea how big this allegedly was.
• Mausoleum of Halikarnassos: NOT HELLENIC! Did not know that.
• Colossus of Rhodes: also had no idea how big it allegedly was, nor the discussion around its placement.