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A History of the World in 100 Objects
by Neil MacGregor
by Neil MacGregor
A browser's delight: objects from the British Museum originally presented as a BBC radio series.
I read it front to back, but I now think the best way to approach it is to dip in wherever you see an object or era that interests you.
The joy is in the book's eclecticism, not its scholarsphip, which is sometimes thin.
Everyone will find their favorites. For me: the swimming raindeer (carved from a mammoth tusk in France) and the gorgeous Clovis spear point from Arizona (11000 BC) in the prehistory period.
Also memorable: the scandalous Warren Cup from Roman Jerusaleum (5-15 AD), the unbelievable Mayan blood-letting stone relief (700 AD), Ife Bronze head (Nigeria, 1400-1500 AD), Reformation Centenary Broadsheet (1617), and the ship's chronometer from the HMS Beagle.
Even the familiar "Great Wave" Japanese print (1830-1833) by Hokusai turns out to have a surprising back story. The maps -- Mexican codex map and North American buckskin map -- are as revealing of a specific worldview as the New Yorker's famous cover of how the typical Manhattanite sees the world.
Some of the objects, however, seem more weird than revealing. What are we to make of a cape of beaten gold that would have pinned the arms of the wearer, found in Wales and dated 1900-1600 BC? Sure, it shows that "trade" existed, but otherwise it's as bizarre and inexplicable as finding a beer can on Mars. Must be aliens out there somewhere.
The final items are inevitably anticlimatic: credit card and solar-powered lamp. Apparently, the British Museum doesn't own any iconic objects of the computer/Internet revolution. Maybe they should buy on an early Apple or PC from Xerox Parc in California.
I read it front to back, but I now think the best way to approach it is to dip in wherever you see an object or era that interests you.
The joy is in the book's eclecticism, not its scholarsphip, which is sometimes thin.
Everyone will find their favorites. For me: the swimming raindeer (carved from a mammoth tusk in France) and the gorgeous Clovis spear point from Arizona (11000 BC) in the prehistory period.
Also memorable: the scandalous Warren Cup from Roman Jerusaleum (5-15 AD), the unbelievable Mayan blood-letting stone relief (700 AD), Ife Bronze head (Nigeria, 1400-1500 AD), Reformation Centenary Broadsheet (1617), and the ship's chronometer from the HMS Beagle.
Even the familiar "Great Wave" Japanese print (1830-1833) by Hokusai turns out to have a surprising back story. The maps -- Mexican codex map and North American buckskin map -- are as revealing of a specific worldview as the New Yorker's famous cover of how the typical Manhattanite sees the world.
Some of the objects, however, seem more weird than revealing. What are we to make of a cape of beaten gold that would have pinned the arms of the wearer, found in Wales and dated 1900-1600 BC? Sure, it shows that "trade" existed, but otherwise it's as bizarre and inexplicable as finding a beer can on Mars. Must be aliens out there somewhere.
The final items are inevitably anticlimatic: credit card and solar-powered lamp. Apparently, the British Museum doesn't own any iconic objects of the computer/Internet revolution. Maybe they should buy on an early Apple or PC from Xerox Parc in California.
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