And objects seem to be emerging as history’s lingua franca. Thanks in part to a recent proliferation of best-selling biographies of major political and military figures, history is hot.
Instead, think of the two histories as 3.2-pound bookends flanking a welter of similarĬollections that showcase the mesmerizing and metamorphic power of artifacts, from a 230,000-year-old female figurine to a jar of dust collected in Lower Manhattan after 9/11. It’s not that 900 more transformational artifacts suddenly materialized since 2009. Is “emerging as history’s lingua franca”:įive years ago, the BBC and the British Museum collaborated on a hugely successful radio series and book called “A History of the World in 100 Objects.” Last week, the Smithsonian followed up with its “History of the World in 1,000 In the Sunday Review essay “Object Lessons in History,” Sam Roberts discusses how telling history through objects A sentimental T-shirt, a kindergarten drawing or a dog-eared book? What objects tell the story of your life? We can use the same approach to tell our personal histories as well. Questions about issues in the news for students 13 and older.Ĭarefully curating a limited set of objects has lately become a popular way for museums and historians to tell vast histories (e.g., the history of the world, or of New York City).Īfter all, artifacts can help us visualize the past and see complex events as something tangible or relatable.
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