The Nile: A Journey Downriver Through Egypt's Past and Present

Toby Wilkinson

jun 2014 · Distribuido por Knopf

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A hypnotic journey in the company of one of the world's most acclaimed Egyptologists over the fabled river telling how the Nile continually brought life to an ancient civilization now dead and how it sustained its successors, now in tumult.

Renowned Egyptologist Toby Wilkinson leads us through space as much as time: from the river's mystical sources (the Blue Nile which rises in Ethiopia, and the White Nile coursing from majestic Lake Victoria); to Thebes, with its Valley of the Kings, Valley of the Queens, and Luxor Temple; the fertile Delta; Giza, home of the Great Pyramid, the sole surviving Wonder of the Ancient World; and finally, to the pulsating capital city of Cairo, where the Arab Spring erupted on the bridges over the Nile. Along the way, he introduces us to mysterious and fabled characters-the gods, godlike pharaohs, emperors and empresses, who joined their fate to the Nile and gained immortality; the adventurers, archaeologists, and historians who have all fallen under its spell. With matchless erudition and storytelling skill, through a lens equal to both panoramas and close-ups, Wilkinson brings millennia of history into view.

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Toby Wilkinson earned a degree in Egyptology from Downing College, Cambridge, and is the recipient of several prestigious awards given in his field. He has published seven books, and received the Hessell-Tiltman Prize for his latest work, The Rise and Fall of Ancient Egypt. He has appeared on radio and television as an expert on ancient Egyptian civilization and is a member of the international editorial board of the Journal of Egyptian History. Since 2004, he has been a Fellow at Clare College, Cambridge, where he resides.