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Synopsis

'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.

To celebrate the publication of A History of the World in 100 Objects, the British Museum is offering Penguin readers a discount on tickets to their forthcoming Shakespeare exhibition.

Shakespeare: staging the world

British Museum (19 July to 25 November 2012)
Supported by BP

Book by 31st December 2011 and enjoy a special advance ticket offer of £12 (regular price £14) for the British Museum’s major exhibition for 2012 in collaboration with the RSC. As the world comes to London in 2012, the exhibition explores London’s emerging role as a world city through the unique perspective of Shakespeare’s plays.

Book now: 020 7323 8181 and quote ‘penguin’ or visit britishmuseum.org/shakespeare with promo code ‘penguin’

Reviews

Critic Review:

‘This is a rare instance of the book being better than the original series… It is heavy and beautiful and something that you might want to hint you would like for Christmas. It is also, ironically, the object that will be picked in the centuries ahead by those who wonder at our grasp of history,’ Alyson Rudd, The Times Book Club

‘MacGregor explores byways not even the most avid visitor to the museum is likely to have explored… [a] wonderful book,’ Tom Holland, The Observer

‘The style is authentic, personal and humorous, and almost tells us as much about the impishly witty MacGregor as it does about the objects,’ Andrew Roberts, Financial Times

‘It is a weighty book, packed with the scholarship of the British Museum's experts, heavy enough to endanger any sleepy reader's spectacles. Not that there will be many such. This is a story book, vivid and witty, shining with insights, connections, shocks and delights,’ Gillian Reynolds, The Daily Telegraph

‘The book is genuinely a 'world history', traversing the globe from remote Scottish Isles to the deserts of aboriginal Australia, and reducing 'our times' to their proper place as a mere moment in the millennia-long span of human history… In his hands, even humdrum objects flash with ideas, not mere surface dazzle… MacGregor has provided a persuasive affirmation of why we need great encyclopaedic museums,’ John Adamson, The Sunday Telegraph

More

We asked our facebook fans if they could choose a book as the 101st Object, which one would they pick? Here are the results:

1st place: Nineteen Eighty-Four
2nd place: On the Origin of Species
3rd place: The Great Gatsby

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