Product Description

A major new book about the life and legend of the world’s ‘most beautiful woman’ – by the new star of TV history.

As soon as men began to write, they made Helen of Troy their subject. Hesiod, a poet born around 700BC and one of the first named authors in history, called her ‘the most beautiful woman in the world’ and the description endured. Even though we have no contemporary representations of her, this Bronze Age princess is still seen as a paradigm of absolute beauty and as a reminder of the terrible power beauty can wield.

Because of her double marriage to the Greek King Menelaus and the Hittite Prince Paris, Helen was held responsible for the enduring enmity between East and West. But who was she? She exists in many forms: the historical figure of the Bronze Age Spartan Queen who ruled over one of the most fertile areas of the Mycenaean world; the goddess subject of an eighth-century BC heroic cult which conflated Helen the person with a pre-Greek goddess; the mythological and literary home-wrecker figure of the Iliad; the icon and the first recorded sex-goddess, a symbol of the power of beauty and love.

Focusing on the ‘real’ Helen (the possibility of a flesh and blood Helen), acclaimed historian Bettany Hughes re-constructs the context of life in the Bronze Age Greece for this elusive pre-historic princess. Hughes brilliantly unpacks the facts and myths surrounding one of the most enigmatic and notorious figures of all time.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1040015 in Books
• Published on: 2005-10-31
• Released on: 2005-10-31
• Original language: English
• Binding: Hardcover
• 288 pages

From Publishers Weekly
Helen of Troy has been a part of the Western cultural consciousness for thousands of years, an often troubling figure of female sexual power. Now British historian Hughes investigates the history and myth of Helen, using a mix of archeological evidence, literary sources and personal observation to flesh out this archetypal creature. Acknowledging that Helen has long served as a lens through which male thinkers have projected their views of women, Hughes traces the uses to which the ancient princess has been put, from the prehistoric Mycenaean world, in which she would have been admired for her beauty and strength, through the Elizabethan age, when she was reviled as a demonic harlot. Although the resulting book could use a generous dollop of editing, and there are too many instances in which the author has to step back and state that "there is no way to know for sure" whether the narrative she builds is accurate or not, the resultant tale is fascinating and illuminating. The elucidation of prehistoric social, political and religious systems is especially interesting and serves as a needed corrective to Christian-influenced constructions of Helen and, through her, all women. (A PBS documentary on Helen of Troy featuring Hughes will air on October 12.) 32 pages of illus., 616 in color. 60,000 first printing.(Oct. 4)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist
Historian Hughes provides an intriguing series of what-ifs as she attempts to flesh out the life of one of the most celebrated women in the annals of Western civilization. The catch? She may or may not have actually existed. What is of seminal importance, however, is the influence the legend of Helen of Troy has had on history, music, literature, and the sociology of male-female relationships. Serving as a "paradigm for the female sex" through the ages, Helen's often contradictory legacy has been enormous. Interweaving history, archaeology, and mythology, Hughes manages to illuminate the tremendous effect this classical character has wielded upon society, art, religion, politics, and culture across time. Following Homer's lead and other significant historical and literary clues, Hughes chronicles Helen's multifaceted odyssey across Bronze Age Greece and through the ensuing centuries in fascinating detail. Margaret Flanagan
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Review
“The book triumphantly reclaims Helen from some of her traducers. Hughes’s portrait is as close to a real, living Helen as we are likely to get.”
–Financial Times

“When Helen launched her “thousand ships,” was she a “shameless hussy?” Or, like her mother, was she a rape victim? . . . The answers have always depended on who you speak to and when. Hughes has them all.”
–The Times

“Hughes skillfully brings this period back to life. A fascinating window onto the power politics of an age . . . a genuinely exciting historical narrative.”
–Sunday Telegraph.


From the Trade Paperback edition.