For two thousand years the real, physical metropolis lay buried
while another, ghostly city lived on through ideas as varied as the
legendary Hanging Gardens, the career of the biblical Daniel, and
even the Apocalypse. More recently, the site of Babylon has been
the centre of major excavation, yet the spectacular results of this
work have done little to displace the many other fascinating ways
in which the city has endured and reinvented itself in culture.
Saddam Hussein, for one, notoriously exploited the Babylonian myth
to associate himself and his regime with its glorious past. Why has
Babylon so creatively fired the human imagination, with results
both good and ill? Why has it been enthralling to so many, and for
so long?In exploring answers, Michael Seymour ranges extensively
over space and time and embraces art, archaeology, history and
literature. From Hammurabi and Nebuchadnezzar, via Strabo and
Diodorus, to the Book of Revelation, Bruegel, Rembrandt, Voltaire,
William Blake and modern interpreters like Umberto Eco, Italo
Calvino and Gore Vidal, the author brings to light a carnival of
disparate sources dominated by powerful and intoxicating ideas such
as the Tower of Babel and the city of sin. Babylon: Legend, History
and the Ancient City weighs idea against reality, fiction against
fact, conjuring the fascinating story of this ancient metropolis
and its legacy to brilliant life as never before.
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