A History Of The World In A 100 Objects: Intro

A History Of The World In A Hundred Objects
Intro,

Neil McGregor, The British Museum's top man & the curator of the list & narrator of the book & the accompanying Radio4 series, begins by justifying the relevance of this book/series. He is aiming to tell the long tale of the History of Humankind through the things they made & their cultural relevance to the lives of the societies that used them & how they help us piece together the way that these societies existed.
In a lot of instances these items are the only reference to our ancestors lives, being created as they were before written evidence was produced, & their form, shape, reason for being created are all pieces in a puzzle that build up a picture of the evolution of Human life & how they fit into a world from a cultural context.
These items, each in it's own way, show how Humans interacted with their environment & other cultures, worked as a society, spread across the globe, fed themselves, survived, socially structured themselves, became enlightened & existed. The items in the list are chosen as a record for all of these things & with the help of modern forensics & scientific techniques people far cleverer than me are able to assess each individual thing & tell a tale of it's unique place in the long history, changes & spread of Humankind & the way they have led it to the point at which we are today.