Matt Elton What ideas about museums did you aim to probe with this new series?
Neil MacGregor We wanted to explore the civic role of Britain's museums by looking at 20 institutions across the whole of the UK outside London. How are they rethinking their purpose in the community? How are they using their objects to engage with visitors in new ways? It seems to me that museums everywhere are looking again at their history, their collections, and their visitors, and thinking about them afresh.
We asked the staff of each museum to pick a single object - but, rather than choosing their greatest treasure, we wanted them to discuss an object that sums up the way in which the museum addresses a particular question or community.
We also talked to members of the public about what each object means to them, and the ways in which the museum is helping the community to reshape its future. What emerges is a fascinating overview of the kinds of questions that different regions and cities want to address, and the objects museums are using to offer answers.
At the time that we're speaking, you're about halfway through making the series. Which places or objects you've encountered so far best illustrate these themes?
Yes, we have been working our way slowly north. In Northern Ireland, we covered a particularly telling example: the Ulster Museum (part of National Museums NI) in Belfast. That's obviously a museum for which the question of national identity is extremely important. What does it mean to be Northern Irish, to be a citizen of Northern Ireland?
Denne historien er fra April 2022-utgaven av BBC History Magazine.
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Denne historien er fra April 2022-utgaven av BBC History Magazine.
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The King They Couldn't Kill -Want to know why Henry VII is remembered as an intensely suspicious king, wracked by paranoia? The answer, writes Nathen Amin, lies in his death-defying rise to power
Henry’s wary nature is typically attributed to his shaky claim to the throne. The first Tudor monarch was unable to escape the taunt that he was a usurper with no right to call himself king. In fact, his renowned paranoia was the inevitable consequence of a traumatic youth – a trait ingrained long before he harboured ambitions to wear a crown. If we delve deeper into Henry’s background, we can draw a fuller picture of one of our most circumspect of monarchs – one that might elicit sympathy for a long misunderstood king.
The Spy Who Hoodwinked Hitler - Dummy tanks at El Alamein. Bogus generals in Algiers. Sham armies on D-Day. All were ruses masterminded by Dudley Clarke. Robert Hutton tells the story of the British soldier who made an art form of duping the Nazis
Examining the reconnaissance photos, Behrendt was convinced that the Allies weren’t in any hurry. They were constructing some kind of pipeline towards the southern end of their line, probably to carry water, which was barely halfway completed. There were supply dumps appearing in the south as well – always a telltale clue about where an attack would come. True, a large number of trucks were parked at the northern end of the line, about 25 miles back from the front, but they hadn’t moved for weeks.
"People have achieved all kinds of crazy things at the age of 18″
ALICE LOXTON talks to Danny Bird about her book on 18 individuals who left an indelible mark on British history before they were out of their teens
Parthian chicken
ELEANOR BARNETT recreates an ancient Roman dish that borrowed flavours from a rival neighbouring empire in the Middle East
"We need a meaningful story for the new generation - our composite union"
WHAT A SUMMER IT’S BEEN SO FAR, WITH AN astonishing election result.
A Pole apart
ROGER MOORHOUSE is absorbed by a little-known but politically significant Polish princess whose life encompassed the major events of the later 18th and 19th centuries
Medieval England's p olitical miracle
From Magna Carta to parliament, taxation to the law courts, the 13th and 14th centuries laid the foundations for the modern British state
EASTERN PROMISES
Lured by rich trading prospects, from the 17th to the 19th centuries Britain attempted to cultivate relations with China sometimes successfully, but often disastrously. Kerry Brown explores the troubled but ultimately vital links between two ambitious realms
THE GENIUS IN THE SHADOWS
Æthelstan is one of the greatest of all Anglo-Saxon monarchs. So why, asks Michael Wood, does the first king of the English remain so fiendishly elusive?
The long road back The election was tough for the Conservatives - but the past holds clues on how parties can return from the brink
It’s election night 1997, and Jeremy Paxman is grilling Tory grandee Cecil Parkinson.
