Like everyone else I have been utterly addicted to the History of the World in 100 Objects on Radio 4 for the past few months. It has been gripping, funny and illuminating. The book too, looks fantastic and is wonderfully reviewed by Andrew Roberts in today's FT:
Because these pieces were written in order to be read over the airwaves, the style is authentic, personal and humorous, and almost tells us as much about the impishly witty MacGregor as it does about the objects.
Of the gorgeously wrought but sexually explicit Warren cup (AD5) found near Jerusalem, with its depiction of a boy peeping around a door at two Greeks engaged in vigorous sodomy, MacGregor writes: “He is clearly a slave, although it is impossible to know whether he is simply indulging in voyeurism, or apprehensively responding to a call for ‘room service’.” Elsewhere of that cup, MacGregor wonders, “Perhaps everybody believes that the best sex happens somewhere else.”
Full story here. See a piece I wrote about it a couple of years ago here. Image copyright the British Museum.
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