Episode notes
Neil MacGregor's world history told through the things that time has left behind. Throughout this week, Neil has been looking at Europe's discoveries around the world and its engagement with different cultures during the 18th century - the European Enlightenment project. Today he describes what was happening in China during this period, as the country was experiencing its own Enlightenment under the Qianlong Emperor. He tells the story through a jade disc (called a Bi) that was probably made around 1500 BC and then written over by the Emperor himself. What does this prehistoric piece of jade…
A History of the World in 100 Objects
by BBC Radio 4 · English · History
Director of the British Museum, Neil MacGregor, narrates 100 programmes that retell humanity's history through the objects we have made.
More from A History of the World in 100 Objects
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13 Oct 2010 · 14 min
Hokusai's The Great Wave
The history of humanity - as told through one hundred objects from the British Museum in London - is once again in Japan. This week Neil MacGregor, the museum's director, is looking at the global economy in the 19th century - at mass production and mass consumption. Today he is with an image that rapidly made its way around the world - Hokusai's print, The Great Wave, the now familiar seascape with a snow topped Mount Fuji in the background that became emblematic of the newly emerging Japan. Neil explores the conditions that produced this famous image - with help from Japan watchers Donald…
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12 Oct 2010 · 14 min
Early Victorian tea set
This week Neil MacGregor's history of the world is looking at how the global economy became cemented in the 19th century, a time of mass production and mass consumption. He tells the story of how tea became the defining national drink in Britain - why have we become so closely associated with a brew made from leaves mainly grown in China and India? The object he has chosen to reflect this curious history is an early Victorian tea set, made in Staffordshire and perfectly familiar to all of us. The historian Celina Fox and Monique Simmonds from Kew gardens find new meaning in the ubiquitous…
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11 Oct 2010 · 14 min
Ship's chronometer from HMS Beagle
Neil MacGregor's history of the world as told through things. Throughout this week he is examining the global economy of the 19th century - of mass production and mass consumption. Today he is with an instrument that first helped Europeans to navigate with precision around the world - a marine chronometer. The one Neil has chosen actually accompanied Darwin on his great voyage to South America and the Galapagos Islands - a journey that was to help lead him to his revolutionary theories on evolution. The geographer Nigel Thrift and the geneticist Steve Jones celebrate the chronometer and the…
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7 Oct 2010 · 14 min
Australian Bark Shield
The history of humanity as told through one hundred objects from the British Museum in London. This week, Neil MacGregor, the Director of the Museum, is looking at Europe's engagement with the rest of the world during the 18th century. Today he is with an object "freighted with layers of history, legend, global politics and race relations". It is a shield from Australia, originally owned by one of the men to first set eyes on Europeans as they descended on Botany Bay nearly 250 years ago. This remarkably well-preserved object was brought to England by the explorer Captain Cook. What can this…
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6 Oct 2010 · 14 min
North American Buckskin Map
The history of humanity - as told through one hundred objects from the British Museum in London - is once again in North America. This week, Neil MacGregor, the museum's director, is looking at Europe's engagement with the rest of the world in the 18th century. Today he tells the story of a map, roughly drawn on deerskin that was used as the colonists negotiated for land in the area between the Great Lakes and the Mississippi. It was probably drawn up by a Native American around 1774. Neil looks at how the French and the British were in conflict in the region, and examines the different…
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5 Oct 2010 · 14 min
Hawaiian feather helmet
This week Neil MacGregor's history of the world is telling the story of European encounters across the globe during the 18th century. Today he finds out what happened to Captain Cook as he was mapping and collecting in the Pacific. Neil tells the story through a chieftain's helmet made from a myriad of colourful bird feathers that was given to Cook when he landed in Hawaii in 1778. This is not a story with a happy ending. The anthropologist Nicholas Thomas and the Hawaiian academics Marques Hanalei Marzan, Kyle Nakanelua and Kaholokula help describe Cook's impact in the Pacific and the…
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13 Jul 2026 · 35 min
From The World to America: Neil MacGregor meets Roman Mars
In 2010, A History of the World in 100 Objects, hosted by Neil MacGregor, premiered on BBC Radio 4 to great acclaim. It was a groundbreaking series that told a complex and interconnected history of the world through 100 objects housed in the British Museum collection. Now, as America marks the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, BBC Studios is partnering with 99% Invisible’s Roman Mars to reimagine the landmark series for the United States— A History of the U.S. in 100 Objects. In this special episode, Roman sits down with Neil MacGregor to talk about how the original…
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25 Dec 2020 · 38 min
Object 101
Ten years on from the ground-breaking Radio 4 series, "A History of The World in 100 Objects", former director of the British Museum Neil MacGregor looks back at the impact of the series, on how storytelling in museums has changed over a turbulent decade and asks which object from 2020 would best encapsulate our modern age. Producer: Paul Kobrak
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22 Oct 2010 · 14 min
Solar-powered lamp and charger
The very last episode in Neil MacGregor's history of humanity as told through the things that time has left behind. The director of the British Museum in London has spent the past year choosing objects from the museum's vast collection to represent a two million year story of humanity. Throughout this week he has been with objects that that speak of the great shifts in human organisation and thinking in the modern world. Here he describes the object that he has picked as his last; it's a solar-powered lamp and charger that he believes can revolutionise the lives of poor people around the…
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21 Oct 2010 · 14 min
Credit card
Neil MacGregor's history of the world as told through things. Throughout this week he is examining objects that speak of the great shifts in human organisation and thinking in the modern world - objects that raise questions about human lives, the environment and global resources. So far this week he has chosen things that deal with political and sexual revolution and that confront the disaster of global arms proliferation. In today's episode he considers the morality of modern global finance and its implication for the future. He tells the story with a credit card that is compliant with…
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