Describes the Seven Wonders of the World, providing background and related information, and comparing them to such modern wonders as the Channel Tunnel, Hoover Dam, Versailles, and the bullet train. Reprint.

Go beyond the visual spectacle of the world's 50 greatest wonders, and discover what makes them such amazing places. With stunning images and expert illustrations, experience and appreciate the most famous sights on earth in an exciting new way.

In Great World Wonders, travel enthusiast and writer Michael Turtle offers a curated guide to the best UNESCO World Heritage sites around the globe, each with a fascinating tale and insight into our shared humanity. Opulent palaces let us peek into the lives of the rich and famous, while the centers of great empires show the evolution of civilizations. There's the surprising beauty in industrial sites from the past century, and the dazzling buildings that were constructed in the name of love. And through it all is the inescapable influence of human behavior, with many of the World Heritage Sites directly linked to important historical events and people. From icons like the Egyptian Pyramids and the Taj Mahal, to undiscovered gems like gold mines and ancient rock paintings, Great World Wonders is a beautiful collection and exploration of the best (and sometimes worst) of history. Featuring stunning photography, this selection of the most interesting World Heritage Sites is not just a source of travel inspiration, it's an incredible journey through the amazing story of our world.

Discover and explore the most incredible statues, monuments, temples, bridges, and ancient cities with this unparalleled survey of the most famous buildings and structures ever created by humans. From Stonehenge to the Sagrada Familia, from the Great Wall of China to the Burj Khalifa, Manmade Wonders of the World plots a continent-by-continent journey around the world, exploring and charting the ingenuity and imagination used by different cultures to create iconic buildings. This truly global approach reveals how humans have tackled similar challenges - such as keeping the enemy out or venerating their gods - in vastly different parts of the world. As writer, historian, and broadcaster Dan Cruickshank writes in his foreword, "reading this book is like taking a journey through the world not only of the present but also of the past, because the roots of many wonders lie in antiquity." By combining breathtaking photography with 3D cutaway artworks, floorplans, and other illustrations, the hidden details and engineering innovations that make each building remarkable are revealed. Featuring the most visited monuments in the world - such as the Eiffel Tower, Taj Mahal, and Machu Picchu - as well as some hidden gems, Manmade Wonders of the World can help you to map out the trip of a lifetime or simply be enjoyed as a celebration of the world that humans have built over thousands of years.

The idea of choosing the Wonders of the World can be traced all the way back to the 5th century, B.C., when the Greek historian Herodotus of the Halicarnassus listed seven must-sees, the Great Pyramid of Khufu in Egypt and six other constructions that long ago vanished from the earth. In this deluxe new LIFE book, Wonders of the World, the editors return to the sites of the original Seven Wonders and then keep right on traveling around the globe--eventually visiting in words and pictures seven-times-seven Wonders, plus one more. There are old Wonders here and a new list offered by the New7Wonders Foundation, a Switzerland-based organization that conducted an online poll that saw more than a million votes cast for the world's greatest Wonders. There are man-made Wonders and natural Wonders. There are obscure Wonders and famous Wonders. The amazing stories behind your favorites are recounted as LIFE goes to the Colosseum, to Stonehenge, to the Great Wall, to Machu Picchu, to the Taj Mahal, to Easter Island, to The Acropolis and the Vatican and back to the Great Pyramid. We travel into outer space for a close-up look at the International Space Station, and into the sea for a sensational vantage on Australia's Great Barrier Reef. We go to the summit of Mount Everest and down into the mile-deep Grand Canyon in Arizona. We could not choose between the world's tallest waterfall, 3,212-foot-high Angel Falls in Venezuela, or that which is arguably the world's most awesome, Victoria Falls on the Zimbabwe-Zambia border--so we went with both. Fifty Wonders in all, each more wondrous than the last. A reader cannot help being amazed and inspired by what man's industry has built through time, and what sublime Wonders nature has graced us with. This a book Herodotus would have loved! And then comes the big bonus: The 7 LIFE Wonders. We were sure that some of these fabulous sites were suitable for framing, and so we went to the vast LIFE archives and picked pictures of some of the most wonderful Wonders taken by famous LIFE photographers. Using a technique we developed in our 2009 book The Classic Collection, we inserted prints of these places in the last section of our book. Better yet: When you remove the prints to frame them, the image stays on the page, sp your lovely coffee-table book remains intact. For these wonders, a wondrous book.

World's Greatest Wonders is an illuminating visual guide to 30 stunning man-made and natural wonders—with annotated 3-D reconstructions and cutaway models from various stages in human development that allow you to journey right to the heart of each of them. We live on a unique planet. The only one that we know of that has life. Amidst the budding civilizations and testaments to human creativity and ingenuity, great geological and ecological diversity have surrounded us since humans took their first steps. The Earth has developed into a truly astounding place to live. The clash of the natural forces that sculpted earth’s surface for millions of years has been supplemented by the great creative spirit of human beings, who have built their own wonders. We have before us a whole world, our own to explore and discover, to find and revel in the natural paradises created by the patient hand of nature as well as the astonishing constructions imagined by the genius of humankind. You just have to look around and take in the spectacle. The wonders: Stonehenge, Pyramids of Giza, Valley of the Kings, Petra, Acropolis, Terracotta Army, The Colosseum, Teotihuacán, Nazca Lines, Chichen Itzá, The Moai, Angkor Wat, Machu Picchu, Forbidden City, St. Peter’s Basilica, Taj Mahal, Empire State Building, Sydney Opera House, Antarctica, Galapagos Islands, The Amazon, Iguazu Falls, Sahara, Virunga National Park, Kilimanjaro, Anjajavy, Himalayas, Niagara Falls, Grand Canyon, and Tongariro. See the best of human and natural creation in the World's Greatest Wonders.

Introduces the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World as known to the ancient Greeks, and a multicultural list of seven additional wonders--from Petra, Jordan, to Rio de Janeiro's statue of Christ--and suggests related projects and experiments.