Object lesson | 21 May 2015

The idea of using objects — salt, cod, nutmeg, silk — to turn history lessons into something popular and accessible has been around for at least a generation. It’s a great way to avoid complicated chronologies and the need to remember dates. A well-chosen object, or trading tool, can tell a narrative story that at the same time reflects the multicultural present, often showing unusual and previously unconsidered connections between places and peoples. Neil MacGregor brought the technique to Radio 4 with his brilliantly conceived and executed account of world history as told through 100 objects in the British Museum. That series (and his most recent application of the technique to the story of Germany, as seen through the Beetle car and the sausage) also proved that the 15-minute programme is radio’s greatest asset. It’s just long enough to impart something concrete, useful or entertaining without going beyond the recommended spell of undiluted infospeak before a pause, a change of tempo or tack is required. It’s also astonishing how much can be packed into little more than 2,000 words, and how much of it you can remember afterwards. On television it would take at least double that amount of time to put across the same information and ensure it sticks.

But how do you follow MacGregor? In a way he has squeezed so much understanding and insight out of the tangible things he has focused on, using them as a way into, and explanation of, the intangible, there’s nothing much else to say. At the same time there now seems to be no other way of telling history. Yet who else can do it with quite so much skill and intuitive understanding? Professor Sunil Khilnani has solved the problem by focusing Incarnations, his new series on India for Radio 4 (produced by Mark Savage), not on curry, chai or statues of Shiva but on 50 great personalities who, he believes, have been crucial to the Indian story.