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iPod Thursday

If next week this happens again, we’ll call it a weekly feature. Otherwise, it’s just a random day in which I’ll mention the podcast that is so flipping cool I’ve been listening to it at any conceivable moment I can stick earbuds in my head: A History of the World in 100 Objects. BBC Radio 4′s brilliant series is mesmerizing; each 15-minute episode discusses a single object from the British Museum, selected by the Museum’s director Neil MacGregor, and how it relates (chronologically) to the history of humanity. The result is kind of a miniaturized and compacted Guns, Germs, and Steel, or at least I’m hearing them develop basically the same thesis from Jared Diamond’s book. But the angle of the single objects picked from the museum is a killer one. The website has detailed photos and videos of the pieces, and links to listen online. Subscribe to the iTunes podcast feed here.

I would warn you to stick it out through the first episode on the Mummy of Hornedjitef, which is fairly dull. It gets quite a lot better as it goes along, and certainly more meaningful as each ‘object’ takes you further along humanity’s development.

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