…learn the history of the world in 15 mins each day?

Some time ago, I wrote about my day spent at the Oxford Literary Festival, and the wonderful time I had at the lecture by the British Museum director Neil MacGregor. Since then, work has pushed me to the limit and I have spent every waking minute working in the ‘war-room’ in a business hotel, worrying about work and, generally being quite one-dimensional.

I found myself craving some intellectual stimulus, anything at all to mitigate the all-consuming drudgery. A bright spot came when I found MacGregor’s History of the World in 100 Objects lectures stored in the BBC online archive. First broadcast over January to March, these are bite-sized pieces of anthropology, and political, social and cultural history using select objects as the starting point.

There are fascinating snippets about the role of agriculture and why humans decided to grow crops like cereals which were so difficult to grow, harvest and make palatable.

A description of beautiful woven and embroidered textiles which were to the early Peruvians from Paracas what porcelain was to the Chinese – works of art which acted as symbols of power and status.

A fragment of a relief showing a siege scene from the time the Assyrians were conquering lands from Egypt to Iran.

A description of gold inlaid pottery from the Jomen people evoking the sophistication of the early tribes of Japan.

I could go on and on...

At fifteen minutes per lecture, these suited my all too short attention span. And while I crave curling up with a good book and delving into the details, these lectures and podcasts allow me at the very least, to learn something new while I am busy.

The programme is currently on a hiatus and will resume in May but you can find the previous episodes on the BBC website: http://www.bbc.co.uk/ahistoryoftheworld/