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. 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 TroyThe hidden tomb of Genghis KhanThe destruction of the fabled library of AlexandriaThe near-destruction of the Mona Lisa and other artThe decipherment of ancient Egyptian hieroglyphsThe extinction—and potential resurrection—of dodos, mammoths, and other iconic speciesProvocative, 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.
