A review by jenn756
A History of the World in 100 Objects by Neil MacGregor

4.0

This is a cultured, genteel sort of book. It features 100 objects from the British Museum that tell the history of the world - which is an interesting concept as all objects have a story to tell, if only we knew what it was. It is a sobering story too as most of the objects seem to talk of warfare, invasion, exploitation, empires rising and falling like seismic eruptions, especially as you reach the early modern age when civilisation gets its teeth into previously undiscovered continents. The misunderstandings between different cultures was massive and there's some particularly poignant items like the map of Canada made on deer hide by Native Americans when they were trying to negotiate with settlers, and even pieces of eight, which I thought had a romantic history, came from slaves digging a silver mine in South America.

There's quite a few religious items too which makes you realise how religion is hard-wired into the human psyche, even if the religious items vary massively in their form.

It took me ages to read - after all there's a 100 objects and each takes a chapter. Its the sort of book you can dip in and out of. I read it partly stuck up a mountain in France whilst I was on a skiing holiday. I'm no good at skiing so spent my time lurking in cafes drinking over-priced cafe lattes and reading this.

There was accompanying Radio 4 series and of course all the objects are in the British Museum and I'd love to see them sometime if I could get down there.