A book that rounds up the latest archaeological and historical research about the Seven Wonders of the Ancient world. Tells the history of how each of these landmarks were conceived and what they meant for the people who built them, used them, and visited them, ultimately showing the ways that the Ancient Wonders have inspired and influenced modern landmarks and ideas (e.g. I.M Pei's Pyramid, the Colossus of Rhodes-Statue of Liberty connection). I wish that the chapter about the Pyramids at Giza had more about other Egyptian & later Nubian pyramid building. I think the pyramids chapter may have given me some weird dreams (being lost in mazes, etc). Hughes did an especially good job going into the religious practices of the Ancient Greeks in the chapters about the Great Temple of Artemis in Ephesus & the Giant Zeus of Olympia. The histories of those sacred sites made me wonder if the practice of rulers deifying themselves and founding their own temples to themselves ultimately weakened belief in the ancient gods. I wish this book was a lot longer, and had more about all of the people and places it mentions, but a lot of the questions I'm left pondering just reflect what's missing from the historical and archaeological record. Also makes me want to learn more about the Bennu heron (me and the world's ornithologists both).