Audiobooks by Neil Macgregor

The Museums That Make Us: Curating Our Shared History

World-renowned art historian Neil MacGregor takes us across Britain to discover local museums and their hidden gems Neil MacGregor, former director of the National Gallery and the British Museum, knows the importance of public museums. In The Museums That Make Us, he takes us around the country to visit twenty local museums and to talk to their curators, staff and local figures about the most prized objects in their collections. Often a child's first experience of valuable objects and historical belongings, these regional spaces can be a wonderful way to recognise local pride and shine a light on buried history. At Penrhyn Castle in North Wales, the museum strives to tell the story of their rich collection of art while also being truthful about the slave trade that made it possible; on the Isle of Lewis, the Museum Tasglann nan Eilean wants to share the story of land ownership and clearances through their objects; at the Leeds Museum, a Roman child's sandal has been chosen to demonstrate their ambitious and thriving scheme of having exhibits leave the museum to go out to schools; and in Bristol's M Shed Museum, one of the city's old Lodekka Buses is used to tell the story of the successful Bristol Bus boycott of 1963. Travelling from Stowe, one of the first examples of a vision of Britain outside London, to the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford, where he looks at an ancient Syrian model clay wagon, possibly a child's toy, to examine how museums can provide for a huge breadth of local people from all over the world, Neil MacGregor uses these invaluable community sites to consider how they are run, who they draw in, and how they can inspire us all. Episode guide First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 on the following dates: Stowe and the Temple of British Worthies 7 March 2022 The Tower Museum, Derry Londonderry 8 March 2022 Penrhyn Castle, North Wales 9 March 2022 PK Porthcurno - Museum of Global Communications 10 March 2022 Museum & Tasglann nan Eilean, Stornoway 11 March 2022 Derby - The Museum of Making 14 March 2022 The Food Museum, Suffolk 15 March 2022 The Auckland Project, Bishop Auckland 16 March 2022 The Hepworth, Wakefield 17 March 2022 Royal Pavilion and Museums, Brighton 18 March 2022 Leicester Museum and Art Gallery 11 April 2022 Bristol's M Shed Museum 12 April 2022 Birmingham 13 April 2022 Liverpool 14 April 2022 Leeds 15 April 2022 The National Museum of Scotland 18 April 2022 The National Museum of NI, Belfast 19 April 2022 The National Museums of Wales, Cardiff 20 April 2022 The Ashmolean Museum, Oxford 21 April 2022 What are museums for? 22 April 2022 Production credits Presented by Neil MacGregor Produced by Tom Alban Original music by Phil Channell ©2022 BBC Studios Distribution Ltd (P) 2022 BBC Studios Distribution Ltd

Neil Macgregor (Author), Neil Macgregor, Various (Narrator)

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Germany: Memories of a Nation

From Neil MacGregor, the author of A History of the World in 100 Objects, this is a view of Germany like no other For the past 140 years, Germany has been the central power in continental Europe. Thirty years ago a new German state came into being. How much do we really understand this new Germany, and how do its people now understand themselves? Neil MacGregor argues that uniquely for any European country, no coherent, over-arching narrative of Germany's history can be constructed, for in Germany both geography and history have always been unstable. Its frontiers have constantly floated. Königsberg, home to the greatest German philosopher, Immanuel Kant, is now Kaliningrad, Russia; Strasbourg, in whose cathedral Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Germany's greatest writer, discovered the distinctiveness of his country's art and history, now lies within the borders of France. For most of the last five hundred years Germany has been composed of many separate political units, each with a distinct history. And any comfortable national story Germans might have told themselves before 1914 was destroyed by the events of the following thirty years. German history may be inherently fragmented, but it contains a large number of widely shared memories, awarenesses and experiences; examining some of these is the purpose of this book. Beginning with the fifteenth-century invention of modern printing by Gutenberg, MacGregor chooses objects and ideas, people and places which still resonate in the new Germany - porcelain from Dresden and rubble from its ruins, Bauhaus design and the German sausage, the crown of Charlemagne and the gates of Buchenwald - to show us something of its collective imagination. There has never been a book about Germany quite like it. © 2021 BBC Studios Distribution Ltd. (P) 2021 BBC Studios Distribution Ltd

Neil Macgregor (Author), Neil Macgregor (Narrator)

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Living with the Gods: The BBC Radio 4 series

In this major new BBC radio series, Neil MacGregor investigates the role and expression of shared beliefs through time and around the world. One of the central facts of human existence is that every society shares a set of beliefs and assumptions - a faith, an ideology, a religion - that goes far beyond the life of the individual. These beliefs are an essential part of a shared identity. They have a unique power to define - and to divide - us, and are a driving force in the politics of much of the world today. Throughout history they have most often been, in the widest sense, religious. Yet this is not a history of religion, nor an argument in favour of faith. It is about the stories which give shape to our lives, and the different ways in which societies imagine their place in the world. Looking across history and around the globe, it interrogates objects, places and human activities to try to understand what shared beliefs can mean in the public life of a community or a nation, how they shape the relationship between the individual and the state, and how they help give us our sense of who we are. For in deciding how we live with our gods, we also decide how to live with each other. Using specially selected objects from the British Museum and beyond, talking to experts from various disciplines and visiting key locations from the river Ganges to Jerusalem, he examines how rituals and systems of belief have shaped our societies. Looking at communities from the distant past to the present day, both in Europe and worldwide, his focus moves from the beginnings of belief and the elemental worship of fire, water and the sun, through festivals, pilgrimages and sacrifices, to power struggles and political battles between faiths and states. Among the objects featured are the Lion Man, a small ivory sculpture which is about 40,000 years old; a 16th century ivory and gold qibla, used to find the direction of Mecca; and the Lampedusa Cross, made from pieces of a refugee boat wrecked off the Italian coast in 2013. Produced by BBC Radio 4 in partnership with the British Museum, this enlightening series explores humanity's enduring need to believe, belong and connect with the cosmos. 'The new blockbuster by the museums maestro Neil MacGregor ... The man who chronicles world history through objects is back ... examining a new set of objects to explore the theme of faith in society' Sunday Times © 2021 BBC Studios Distribution Ltd. (P) 2021 BBC Studios Distribution Ltd

Neil Macgregor (Author), Neil Macgregor (Narrator)

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A History of the World in 100 Objects: The landmark BBC Radio 4 series

In 2010, the BBC and the British Museum embarked on an ambitious project: to tell the story of two million years of human history using one hundred objects selected from the Museum's vast and renowned collection. Presented by the British Museum's then Director Neil MacGregor, each episode focuses on a single object - from a Stone Age tool to a solar-powered lamp - and explains its significance in human history. A stone pillar tells us about a great Indian emperor preaching tolerance to his people; Spanish pieces of eight tell us about the beginning of a global currency; and an early Victorian tea-set speaks to us about the impact of empire. Music, interviews with specialists and quotations from written texts enrich the listener's experience. Objects from a similar period of history are grouped together to explore a common theme and make connections across the world. Seen in this way, history is a kaleidoscope: shifting, interlinked, constantly surprising and shaping our world in ways that most of us have never imagined. This download also includes an illustrated booklet with additional background information and photographs.

Neil Macgregor (Author), Neil Macgregor (Narrator)

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As Others See Us: The BBC Radio 4 series

All ten episodes of BBC Radio 4's ambitious global series, presented by Neil MacGregor 'Insightful, provocative, satisfying' Telegraph With the United Kingdom on the brink of potentially momentous change, historian and broadcaster Neil MacGregor embarks on a worldwide voyage to discover how Britain is perceived from abroad. Visiting Germany, Egypt, Nigeria, Canada, India, Singapore, the United States, Spain, Australia and Poland - all countries with significant historical links to the UK - he talks to leading opinion formers to find out how they, as individuals and members of their wider communities, see Britain. His interviewees reveal what they learnt about Britain at school, and how key events and cultural influences, as well as their own personal experiences, have shaped their impressions of the country now. Each has a defining image that symbolises the UK to them: from Shakespeare to Monty Python, the 1966 World Cup, the Suez Crisis, the Financial Times, '99' ice cream and The Crown. Throughout his travels, MacGregor uncovers tensions and frustrations, admiration and affection - along with an underlying sense of hope and a desire to retain close links with Britain as it prepares to reevaluate its relationship with Europe and the world.

Neil Macgregor (Author), Full Cast, Neil Macgregor (Narrator)

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Shakespeare's Restless World

What was life like for Shakespeare's first audiences? In a time of political and religious unrest and economic expansion, how did Elizabethan play-goers make sense of their changing world? What did the plays mean to the public when they were first performed? In this fascinating series, Neil MacGregor attempts to answer these questions by examining twenty objects from that turbulent period. There are grand objects such as a communion chalice, a Venetian goblet, and Dr Dee's mirror, as well as everyday items such as a theatregoer's fork and an apprentice's cap. From Drake's circumnavigation medal to an eye relic, he uses these objects to explore the issues that shaped Shakespeare's plays, and considers what they reveal about the concerns and beliefs of Shakespearean England. Speaking to scholars, historians and experts, he discusses the topics raised - everything from exploration and discovery to violence, entertainment, and the plague.

Neil Macgregor (Author), Neil Macgregor (Narrator)

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