After excavating and researching the city of Thebes for many years, Nigel and Helen Strudwick here offer an in-depth introduction to it, one that will be welcomed by both armchair travellers and visitors to that popular tourist destination. After reviewing the topography of the site, the Strudwicks recount the history of Thebes from the city's rise in the late Old Kingdom to the peak of its power in the New Kingdom and to its gradual decline in the Graeco-Roman period. They discuss the central role played by the gods in the community's religious life, and take us on a tour of the great temples of Karnak and Luxor on the East Bank of the Nile and of the temples and tombs of kings, queens, princes, and ordinary individuals on the West Bank.