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Neil MacGregor

A History of the World in 100 Objects Hardcover – 25 Oct. 2010

by Neil MacGregor (Author)

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'In this book, we travel back in time and across the globe, to see how we humans have shaped our world and been shaped by it over the past two million years. The story is told exclusively through the things that humans have made - all sorts of things, carefully designed and then either admired and preserved or used, broken and thrown away. I've chosen just a hundred objects from different points on our journey - from a cooking pot to a golden galleon, from a Stone Age tool to a credit card, and each object comes from the collection of the British Museum.' [from the introduction]

This book takes a dramatically original approach to the history of humanity, using objects which previous civilisations have left behind them, often accidentally, as prisms through which we can explore past worlds and the lives of the men and women who lived in them. The book's range is enormous. It begins with one of the earliest surviving objects made by human hands, a chopping tool from the Olduvai gorge in Africa, and ends with an object from the 21st century which represents the world we live in today.

Neil MacGregor's aim is not simply to describe these remarkable things, but to show us their significance - how a stone pillar tells us about a great Indian emperor preaching tolerance to his people, how Spanish pieces of eight tell us about the beginning of a global currency or how an early Victorian tea-set tells us about the impact of empire. Each chapter immerses the reader in a past civilisation accompanied by an exceptionally well-informed guide. Seen through this lens, history is a kaleidoscope - shifting, interconnected, constantly surprising, and shaping our world today in ways that most of us have never imagined. An intellectual and visual feast, it is one of the most engrossing and unusual history books published in years.

Print length

732 pages
Language

English
Publisher

Allen Lane
Publication date

25 Oct. 2010
Dimensions

16.2 x 5.9 x 23.9 cm
ISBN-10

1846144132
ISBN-13

978-1846144134
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Product description

From the Inside Flap

'In this book, we travel back in time and across the globe, to see how we humans have shaped our world and been shaped by it over the past two million years. The story is told exclusively through the things that humans have made - all sorts of things, carefully designed and then either admired and preserved or used, broken and thrown away. I've chosen just a hundred objects from different points on our journey - from a cooking pot to a golden galleon, from a Stone Age tool to a credit card, and each object comes from the collection of the British Museum.'

This book takes a dramatically original approach to the history of humanity, using objects which previous civilisations have left behind them, often accidentally, as prisms through which we can explore past worlds and the lives of the men and women who lived in them. The book's range is enormous. It begins with one of the earliest surviving objects made by human hands, a chopping tool from the Olduvai gorge in Africa, and ends with an object from the 21st century which represents the world we live in today.

Neil MacGregor's aim is not simply to describe these remarkable things, but to show us their significance - how a stone pillar tells us about a great Indian emperor preaching tolerance to his people, how Spanish pieces of eight tell us about the beginning of a global currency or how an early Victorian tea-set tells us about the impact of empire. Each chapter immerses the reader in a past civilisation accompanied by an exceptionally well-informed guide. Seen through this lens, history is a kaleidoscope - shifting, interconnected, constantly surprising, and shaping our world today in ways that most of us have never imagined. An intellectual and visual feast, it is one of the most engrossing and unusual history books published in years.

About the Author

Neil MacGregor was Director of the National Gallery, London from 1987 to 2002 and of the British Museum from 2002 to 2015. His previous books include A History of the World in 100 Objects, Shakespeare's Restless World and Germany: Memories of a Nation, all available in Penguin and now between them translated into more than a dozen languages. For his work on the BBC Radio 4 series, British Museum exhibition and book Germany: Memories of a Nation, he was awarded (in Germany) the Friedrich Gundolf Prize, the Goethe Medal and the German National Prize and (in the UK) the British Academy's Nayef Al-Radhan Prize for Transcultural Understanding. In 2010, he was made a member of the Order of Merit, the UK's highest civil honour. He is now Chair of the Steering Committee of the Humboldt Forum in Berlin.

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Allen Lane; First Edition (25 Oct. 2010)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 732 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1846144132
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1846144134
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 16.2 x 5.9 x 23.9 cm

Best Sellers Rank: 339,992 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- 2,936 in Archaeology (Books)
- 4,290 in Art History (Books)
- 9,319 in World History (Books)

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4.6 1,765 ratings

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Tricia

Great pictures.

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 25 November 2022

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I had listened to the programme on Radio 4 and then my friend was given this book and started to read it. She suggested we went to the British Museum to see our favourite pieces (incidentally I think the BM could do a much better job of sign posting these pieces - for example on their website they said the Benin bronzes were not on display but almost by accident we saw them in the basement on display)
The text in the book is almost but not quite identical to the radio scripts it’s interesting to see what was altered.
In the end having the book on Kindle on my phone was the most useful for the BM trip. The BM’s own app is also very good but didn’t seem to cover all 100 pieces.

One person found this helpful

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Carmen Stahl

Front book cover was creased

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 6 April 2023

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The front of the book had a big crease on it, but it was supposed to be new. A bit disappointed as this was bought as a gift.

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BancoNuri

Delightful and Essential Reading

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 26 November 2016

Verified Purchase

Originally this book started out as a project for BBC Radio 4; with four years in the planning, and a host of experts to help him, Neil MacGregor has created a really special collection of top artefacts, all of which can be found at the British Museum. The series has been described as a project charting the history of humanity, and after having read the book it comes as no surprise that it has won awards and bursaries for the museum, at which MacGregor was the Director for 13 years.

Each object gets about five pages each, so the chapters are a bite-size insight into each era of history that the object relates to. Remember that this project started as a radio series, and so each week they would have different guests on the show, experts in the fields that each item relates to; in the book there are little snippets of what each guest had to say.

Whilst the book might be a bit too heavy and full on to read in one go, it’s one of those books you can dip in and out of, and the chapters are short and punchy which makes it all the more easier.

This book is a must for anyone who considers themselves a history enthusiast, no matter what period of history interests you. One of the cleverest things about the book is how it connects each epoch. When you think about the Romans, or Greeks, or Egyptians, you don’t necessarily know how time transitioned from one to the other, but this book covers the in-between phases too.

I would also recommend this book to anyone who has interests in social sciences, philosophy, and politics too. This book is invaluable in giving an objective view of the world’s history as we know it. If you want to understand how and why we are the way we are, then you need to know where we came from, and this history connects all of us.

Not only does this book fill in the blanks between dynasties and eras, but all of the objects are to be found in the British Museum. It really brings each artefact to life, instead of just reading the two lines next to each artefact which never truly does it justice.

I'd recommend reading the book, highlighting the chapters/items you want to see, and take the book with you on a visit to the British Museum. Don’t be surprised if you find people following you, having a book in your hand and looking determined like you know where you’re going usually makes an impression on other visitors.

20 people found this helpful

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'Telling history through things is what museums are for' - Insightful and eclectic exploration of world history

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 14 January 2013

Vine Customer Review of Free Product( What's this? )Verified Purchase

'When I came through the doors of the British museum in 1954, at the age of eight, I began with the mummies, and I think that's still where most people begin when they first visit'.

Neil MacGregor, Director of the British Museum, starts his description of the first of 100 objects by describing his first time in the British museum. Like many other Radio 4 listeners I was entranced, intrigued, educated and fascinated by this series. In the old days I might have had to stay in the car to hear the end of a broadcast. Now, thankfully, we have access to these broadcasts on podcasts and, of course, this book to peruse at your leisure. This review is for the paperback which has the advantage of not being as weighty as the hardback but the disadvantage of poor illustrations - I would suggest it's worth getting the hardback with its colour plates.

The objects are described in their context and this allows MacGregor to open up a wider discussion of culture and history. The objects are collected in small groups ranging from 'Making Us Human 2,000,000-9000 BC to The Silk Road and Beyond AD 400-880 to The World of Our Making AD 1914 - 2010.

In describing a spear point MacGregor says 'Things that are thrown away or lost tell us as much about the past as many of those carefully preserved for posterity.' Many of these object are beautiful -all of them tell us something about human experience through the ages.

One person found this helpful

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Captain Kirk

Fascinating but flawed

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 23 October 2011

Verified Purchase

A spin off from the Radio 4 series, a history of the world exemplified by objects from the British Museum, selected to show the development from all parts of the world of mans art, culture and technology. Each entry has one photo and a commentary by the author.
As others have pointed out, in a book of this kind you expect the presentaion and photographs to be superb. They are far from it, and often the commentary remarks upon some detail or major feature that it is hard or impossible to see on the poor, badly lit photographs. Each object is pictured from only one angle, there are no other more detailed photographs. If you go on the "look inside" on this site it takes you to pictures not as they appear in the book itself, so dont be fooled.
The commentary is quite informative and readable, if at times too effusive. And it is littered with strange little quotes eg a pop singers thoughts, that add nothing to the script.
A more comprehensive, informative and better presented book, at least for the history of technolgy, is Seventy Great Inventions of the Ancient World The Seventy Great Inventions of the Ancient World

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MR CAMERON REITH

Buy the hardback. Paperback content is not the same.

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 3 January 2023

Verified Purchase

This is a very interesting and informative book. I own a hardback copy which has a full page colour photograph of each object at the beginning of each chapter. This is essential to fully appreciate the accompanying text. Unfortunately, the paperback copy I bought from Amazon as a gift for some-one only has small black and white thumbnails with poor visible detail at the start of the chapters. There are a couple of sections with a total of 28 colour photographs in the book but these are poorly printed,badly cropped, and mostly a third page or half page in size.
5 stars for the hardback version, 2 stars for the paperback.

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