Discover the astonishing story of the world’s greatest lost treasures in this enthralling narrative by a writer with "the anecdotal flourishes of Oliver Sacks and the populist accessibility of Malcolm Gladwell." (Entertainment Weekly)
Spanning a million years of history, the mysteries in these pages include fabled relics, legendary cities, mythical species, and undeciphered languages that have bedeviled seekers for centuries. This enthralling narrative collects the most spellbinding tales of these experiences and weaves them into a thoughtful meditation on what all this loss means across the sweep of human history and the scope of human lives, including:
- The long-lost city of Troy
- The hidden tomb of Genghis Khan
- The destruction of the fabled library of Alexandria
- The near-destruction of the Mona Lisa and other art
- The decipherment of ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs
- The extinction—and resurrection—of dodos, mammoths, and other iconic species
Provocative, surprising, and above all entertaining, this globe-trotting narrative acknowledges the sheer scale of humanity’s losses, celebrates the treasures we have managed to retain, and reveals why they continue to captivate us centuries later.