Neil MacGregor

I am at a loss for what to rate this. On the one hand, it covers mostly the parts of history I’m interested in: ritual and domestic life, the things that tend not to be covered in Big History Books. And it’s interesting, and offers little bite-sized pieces of information about a lot of history and a lot of the world. But on the other hand, this book made me mad, so mad that I had to take several breaks while reading it to read other books and cool down.

This book has a narrative show more underlying the many separate chapters, and it is one about the British showing up in a place and taking whatever they wanted, again and again and again. And, I mean, fair! That happened! And, honestly, few countries have any kind of history in that area to be proud of. But what is frustrating is how completely MacGregor just — accepts it.

He talks about how people in various areas are building new identites around ancient objects that have deep meaning for them — ancient objects the British Museum has, and plans to keep, even though those people desparately want them back. He talks about how the museum didn’t know what a Japanese mirror was for, or what its history was, until a visiting Japanese scholar explained it, yet never wonders if perhaps the items in question might be better understood, might speak more effectively to the world, in a museum closer to their original home. He mentions how odd it is, in a secular museum, to find offerings in front of statues of gods, and never wonders if perhaps those statues belong in a place of worship instead.

I’m sure he does grapple with those issues in private life — I hope he does — and it’s also very clear that in presenting this all as “isn’t it great that the British Museum has all these things?” he’s toeing the official party line, but GOD was it frustrating to see essentially no acknowledgement of these things in the book.

But, you know, I did read it. (Though it took a month, what with all the breaks I took.) And I did enjoy it. (Albeit with some shrieking of, “It’s more complicated than that!” about the few areas of history I knew something about.) I just also grabbed a friend who is a Hittite scholar and made her justify museums (“I can’t, really”) and ranted at her for probably longer than she wanted. show less

I gave this one a rare five stars, because it's an awesome book. I actually listened to it on audio CD (and suspect reading it might be tough sledding for me), but got the book to enjoy the pictures fairly quickly.

Talk about scope! From protohuman hand tools to a solar powered lamp, MacGregor describes his objects and their histories to us with knowledge, passion, humor, and style. Most of the history here is outside the normal dates-when-generals-did-stuff run of the mill history, so unless show more you know a lot of art history, you'll probably find it fresh material. It's loosely grouped into larger categories, but each object stands well on its own.

And the details of these many objects flow together to create a very different holistic history: not Jared Diamond's tale of migration and ecology, or the more common geopolitics, but something different. It's a tale of the arc of the human experience that deals with technology, religion, and intellectual life as a single seamless story. I am richer for the experience. You will be too. Neil MacGregor rocks! show less

This book came to my attention a few years ago when I discovered its spinoff, A History of America in 100 Objects, published by the Smithsonian. Although I added both to my list immediately, I didn't get around to reading this one until just now (glad I picked it up when I did as my library has only two copies left, and the one I hold in my hands is starting to fall apart). It's an amazing tome for lovers of history and the generally curious. I appreciated learning what it is that makes each show more object unique and how each is significant in world history. While I have never been to British Museum (someday!), it feels like the British Museum came, in a sense, to me. Wonderful. show less

https://fromtheheartofeurope.eu/living-with-the-gods-by-neil-macgregor/

A lovely book, based on a BBC Radio series of the same name, lavishly illustrated (as the radio cannot be) with photographs of art and architecture, and enriched by quotes from commentators who know what they are talking about. Some people like to simply dismiss religion as at best a distraction and at worst a force for conflict and division; MacGregor doesn’t shy away from that side of things, but he goes deep into show more what religious people are actually doing – symbolism, practice, history, politics. He draws some very interesting parallels between religions separated by continents and centuries.

I found it a very healthy perspective on what is and isn’t unique to each of the main strands of world belief. It’s also a surprisingly light read, despite its length and weight, perhaps because of its origin as radio scripts. Recommended. show less