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Bettany Hughes

Dr Bettany Hughes is an award-winning historian, author and broadcaster, whose speciality is ancient and mediaeval history and culture. She has taught at Bristol, Manchester, UCL, Oxford and Cambridge Universities and is a Research Fellow of King's College London.

Her first book Helen of Troy: Goddess, Princess, Whore has been translated into ten languages. Her second, The Hemlock Cup, Socrates, Athens and the Search for the Good Life was a New York Times bestseller and was shortlisted for the Writer’s Guild Award. She has written and presented numerous documentaries for the BBC, Channel 4, Discovery, PBS, The History Channel, National Geographic and ITV. Her programmes have now been seen by over 100 million worldwide. In 2011 she was Chair of the Orange Prize for Fiction and was made an Honorary Fellow of the Historical Association and of Cardiff University.

Bettany is a long-standing patron and supporter of educational and campaigning charities The Iris Project, which promotes and teaches Latin, Greek in state schools. Her current TV series, Genius of the Ancient World, explores the lives of Buddha, Socrates and Confucius and promotes the power of thinking, learning and investigating.