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scgbean's review against another edition
5.0
This book was so interesting and informative. I learned so many things from this book. Although it took me forever to read, it was easy to understand.
ronanmcd's review against another edition
5.0
I had originally intended to read this book in a piecemeal fashion. However the author's style and tone, plus the judicious selection of potted histories was arresting enough to have me read it through.
A history of the world through the description and discussion of objects is not new, although it is fairly unusual. What makes this history unique is that they are all contained under one roof - The British Museum.
It is a fascinating read, short bursts each subsequent piece in a natural ideological progression from the previous but generally at a geographic remove.
A history of the world through the description and discussion of objects is not new, although it is fairly unusual. What makes this history unique is that they are all contained under one roof - The British Museum.
It is a fascinating read, short bursts each subsequent piece in a natural ideological progression from the previous but generally at a geographic remove.
romrosp's review against another edition
3.0
Object 25 Gold Coin of Croesus, around 550 BC
p. 159
'As rich as Croesus'. It's a phrase that echoes down the centuries...
p. 161
It was thanks to that wealth that Croesus was able to build the great Temple of Artemis at Ephesus - the rebuilt version of which became one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World.
p. 159
'As rich as Croesus'. It's a phrase that echoes down the centuries...
p. 161
It was thanks to that wealth that Croesus was able to build the great Temple of Artemis at Ephesus - the rebuilt version of which became one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World.
zhelana's review against another edition
5.0
This book ranged from the first objects that make us identify our ancestors as human until 2010 with 20 themes. It skipped things like world wars and nuclear bombs and instead focused on the things that make us good. Music. Religion. Art. Even a credit card. I very much enjoyed every minute of it.
lkgannon's review against another edition
informative
reflective
medium-paced
3.75
Very long. Needed break. Picked up where left off and enjoyed reading at night and in the morning.
siria's review against another edition
informative
3.75
This is a companion piece to the History of the World in 100 Objects BBC radio series, first broadcast in 2010. I listened to it back in the day and really enjoyed it, and on an object-by-object level I often did the same here. The lavish illustrations allow for an examination of details that I could only imagine when listening to Neil MacGregor's audio narration. MacGregor writes with a clear affection for and fascination with these objects, all of which belong to the collection of the institution of which he was then the director, the British Museum.
However, MacGregor's position clearly muzzled him from talking about all the deeply hinky things that have been involved in the gathering of that collection, there are some unexamined assumptions at play here (more than one pencilled 'hmm' or '!' appear in the margins of my copy now), and some quoted experts whose rep has not aged the best over the last decade or so.
(If I may be allowed a moment of petty chauvinism, it was dryly amusing to see that 11 objects of the 100 were found in/come from what's now the UK, 9 of them from England alone, but not one from Ireland. The English do like to claim us while also ignoring us, and to make "British" a simple synonym for "English.")
However, MacGregor's position clearly muzzled him from talking about all the deeply hinky things that have been involved in the gathering of that collection, there are some unexamined assumptions at play here (more than one pencilled 'hmm' or '!' appear in the margins of my copy now), and some quoted experts whose rep has not aged the best over the last decade or so.
(If I may be allowed a moment of petty chauvinism, it was dryly amusing to see that 11 objects of the 100 were found in/come from what's now the UK, 9 of them from England alone, but not one from Ireland. The English do like to claim us while also ignoring us, and to make "British" a simple synonym for "English.")