Bettany Hughes

A cultural history of the goddess of love, from an award-winning historian Aphrodite was said to have been born from the sea, rising out of a froth of white foam. But long before the Ancient Greeks conceived of this voluptuous blonde, she existed as an early spirit of fertility on the shores of Cyprus-and thousands of years before that, as a ferocious warrior-goddess in the Middle East. Proving that this fabled figure is so much more than an avatar of commercialized romance, historian Bettany Hughes reveals the remarkable lifestory of one of antiquity's most potent myths. Venus and Aphrodite brings together ancient art, mythology, and archaeological revelations to tell the story of human desire. From Mesopotamia to modern-day London, from Botticelli to Beyoncé, Hughes explains why this immortal goddess continues to entrance us today-and how we trivialize her power at our peril.

A Biography of Desire

Venus and Aphrodite

Istanbul has always been a place where stories and histories collide and crackle, where the idea is as potent as the historical fact. From the Qu'ran to Shakespeare, this city with three names - Byzantium, Constantinople, Istanbul - resonates as an idea and a place, and overspills its boundaries - real and imagined. Standing as the gateway between the East and West, it has served as the capital of the Roman, Byzantine, Latin and Ottoman Empires. For much of its history it was known simply as The City, but, as Bettany Hughes reveals, Istanbul is not just a city, but a story. In this epic new biography, Hughes takes us on a dazzling historical journey through the many incarnations of one of the world's greatest cities. As the longest-lived political entity in Europe, over the last 6,000 years Istanbul has absorbed a mosaic of micro-cities and cultures all gathering around the core. At the latest count archaeologists have measured forty-two human habitation layers. Phoenicians, Genoese, Venetians, Jews, Vikings, Azeris all called a patch of this earth their home. Based on meticulous research and new archaeological evidence, this captivating portrait of the momentous life of Istanbul is visceral, immediate and scholarly narrative history at its finest.

Istanbul

A noted historian reexamines the issue of the real Helen of Troy by delving into mythology, poetry, and art, and by examining the sparse shards of historical evidence for the possible reality of Helen's existence, tracing the fluid image of Helen from ancient times to the present day. 60,000 first printing.

Goddess, Princess, Whore

Helen of Troy

From the celebrated British author and historian: a dazzling new book in which she combines historical inquiry and storytelling élan to give us a brilliantly vivid portrait of Socrates and of the Golden Age of Athens. Socrates’ life spanned “seventy of the busiest, most wonderful and tragic years in Athenian history,” and Bettany Hughes re-creates this fifth-century B.C. city, drawing on the latest sources—archaeological, topographical, and textual—to illuminate the streets where Socrates walked, to place him there, to show us his life as he lived and experienced it. She takes us through the teeming Agora where Socrates often spoke, and where he was condemned to death. We visit the red-light district, the gymnasia, the shrines he frequented, and the battlefields where he fought. We meet the men, and the few women, who were central to his life. And we come to see the profound influences of time and place in the evolution of his eternally provocative philosophy. Deeply informed and vibrantly written, The Hemlock Cup gives us the most substantial and fascinating depiction we have ever had of one of the most influential thinkers of all time.

Socrates, Athens, and the Search for the Good Life

The Hemlock Cup

Üc Sehrin Hikayesi

Istanbul Ciltli

A Tale of Three Cities

Through ancient art, evocative myth, exciting archaeological revelations and philosophical explorations Bettany Hughes shows why this immortal goddess endures through to the 21st century and what her journey through time reveals about what matters to us as humans.  

Charting Venus' origins in powerful ancient deities, Bettany demonstrates that Venus is far more complex than first meets the eye. Beginning in Cyprus, the goddess' mythical birthplace, Bettany decodes Venus' relationship to the Greek goddess Aphrodite and, in turn, Aphrodite's mixed-up origins both as a Cypriot spirit of fertility and procreation - but also as a descendant of the prehistoric war goddesses of the Near and Middle East, Ishtar, Inanna and Astarte. 

On a voyage of discovery to reveal the truth behind Venus, Hughes reveals how this mythological figure is so much more than nudity, romance and sex. 

It is the both the remarkable story of one of antiquity's most potent forces and the story of human desire - how it transforms who we are and how we behave.

History of a Goddess 

Venus and Aphrodite 

The Seven Wonders of the Ancient World

The Ideas That Make Us

Una ciudad con tres nombres —Bizancio, Constantinopla, Estambul— que en sus seis mil años de historia ha sido capital de cuatro imperios —el de Roma, el bizantino, el imperio latino de los cruzados y el otomano— y sede tanto del patriarcado cristiano como del califato islámico. Un punto de encuentro entre oriente y occidente donde se han establecido, en diversas épocas, fenicios, griegos, venecianos o vikingos. Bettany Hughes ha conseguido transformar esta historia en un relato "enormemente entretenido y basado en una impecable investigación", en palabras de Peter Frankopan, por donde desfilan los más diversos personajes, desde Pausanias hasta Mustafá Kemal Atatürk, pasando por Constantino, Justiniano, Teodora o Suleimán el Magnífico, y donde la narración de los grandes acontecimientos históricos y de las más fascinantes anécdotas configura lo que la crítica ha calificado como "una magistral biografía colectiva".

La ciudad de los tres nombres

Estambul

A cultural history of the goddess of love, from a New York Times bestselling and award-winning historian. Aphrodite was said to have been born from the sea, rising out of a froth of white foam. But long before the Ancient Greeks conceived of this voluptuous blonde, she existed as an early spirit of fertility on the shores of Cyprus -- and thousands of years before that, as a ferocious warrior-goddess in the Middle East. Proving that this fabled figure is so much more than an avatar of commercialized romance, historian Bettany Hughes reveals the remarkable lifestory of one of antiquity's most potent myths. Venus and Aphrodite brings together ancient art, mythology, and archaeological revelations to tell the story of human desire. From Mesopotamia to modern-day London, from Botticelli to Beyoncé, Hughes explains why this immortal goddess continues to entrance us today -- and how we trivialize her power at our peril.

Bettany Hughes

About

Books

Join the club