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.
Perhaps the single most common theme across all of history is loss. The loss of lands, loss of sacred objects, loss of languages, of rights, of life—the past groans with disappearances of all kinds. This enthralling narrative collects the most spellbinding tales of these experiences and weaves them into a thoughtful meditation on what it all 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 potential 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.
