Awards

• Short-listed for Galaxy National Book Awards: More4 Popular Non-Fiction Book of the Year 2011
• Shortlisted for Galaxy National Book Awards: More4 Popular Non-Fiction Book of the Year 2011.

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9781846144134

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Chris writes: This is one of the most moving books I've read in recent months. I've been reading it aloud to my partner before bed each night before dozing off to dream of the worlds the object has invoked. This is bedtime reading at its best. It's a fantastic approach – to tell humanity's story through objects. Neil MacGregor brings alive these seemingly obscure objects - a north American otter pipe (200BC-AD100), a sphinx of Tarharqo (680BC), gold coins of Abd al-Malik (AD696) and Tang Tomb figurines (AD728) and places them in their historical and cultural context in an amusing and enticing way. "Wow" I found myself constantly exclaiming as I turned to a new beautifully-photographed object. Neil MacGregor the director of the British Museum and, over two years, choose the 100 objects from the museum's collection and, teaming up with BBC Radio produced a critically-acclaimed radio series of the same name, from which the book derives. A former art critic, MacGregor has a noticeable nous for translating the visual into the written word in a personal and funny way. Take for example the oldest object in the book, nearly two-million-year-old stone chopping tool. MacGregor points out that it has more chips than it needs to perform its job of cutting meat. "Those extra chips", he explains, "tell us that right from the beginning, we – unlike other animals – have felt the urge to make things more sophisticated than they need be." See what I mean? Intriguing!

Author Information

Neil MacGregor was Director of the National Gallery, London from 1987 to 2002 and of the British Museum from 2002 to 2015, and Chair of the Steering Committee of the Humboldt Forum in Berlin from 2015 to 2018. 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. In 2010, he was made a member of the Order of Merit, the UK's highest civil honour. In 2015 he was awarded the Goethe Medal and the German National Prize. In 2018 the radio series Living with the Gods received the Sandford Saint Martin Award for Religious Broadcasting.

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