How humans have shaped the world and been shaped by it over the millennia is told by Neil MacGregor through carefully chosen items from the British Museum collection in “A History of the World in 100 Objects” (Viking; $45). MacGregor tells a history of the world in a unique new way: by deciphering the messages that objects communicate across time. These objects range from a crude million-year-old stone chopping tool to modern solar-powered lamps and chargers. MacGregor points out that from the time our ancestors starting making and using implements such as that stone artifact there has been a dependency on tools; people would have been unable to survive without the things they create. “In this sense, it is making things that makes us human,” he writes.

The work is divided into 20 sections, each with several highly readable, informative chapters peppered with informal wry asides. Each object, presented chronologically, is accompanied by a photograph and discussion of its connections to complex societies rather than individual events. MacGregor points out that it does take objects to flesh out history; it cannot be done by texts alone, for writing is one of humanity’s more recent achievements.

Accompanying the photograph of a clay tablet made circa 3100-3000 B.C., MacGregor writes: “Of all mankind’s great advances, the development of writing is surely the giant: It could be argued that it has had more impact on the evolution of human society than any other single invention. But where did it begin – and how? A piece of clay, made just over 5,000 years ago in a Mesopotamian city, is one of the earliest examples of writing that we know; the people who gave us the Standard of Ur have also left us one of the earliest examples of writing.

“It is emphatically not great literature; it is about beer and the birth of bureaucracy. It comes from what is now southern Iraq, and it’s on a little clay tablet, about 9 centimetres by 7 (4 inches by 3) – almost exactly the same shape and size as the mouse that controls your computer.”

While the book encompasses societies over the globe and known time, North Americans should easily relate to MacGregor’s section on a stone pipe carved somewhere between 200 B.C. and 100 A.D. The pipe, of a reddish stone depicts the upper part of a swimming otter. This pinpoints the world’s earliest use of tobacco pipes. MacGregor observes: “Although smoking is now largely seen as a fatal vice, 2,000 years ago in North America pipe smoking was a fundamental ceremonial and religious part of human life.” He discusses the economic and social impact of tobacco use and how it evolved from religious ceremonial use to an activity associated with pure pleasure. He notes that the overthrow of smoking in the Western world in the past 30 years has been an extraordinary revolution: “What societies deem allowable as pleasure is constantly and unpredictably negotiated.”

The most famous coins of all, Spanish pieces of eight, truly were the first global money. Minted in the late 1500s, the one displayed in the British Museum is a dullish silver color due to surface corrosion; but when it was struck, that piece of eight would have glittered and shone. The Spaniards explored the Americas lured by the prospect of gold, but what made them rich was silver. It was this abundance to silver that made Spanish kings the most powerful rulers in Europe.

The above are just a smattering of the rich contents of MacGregor’s work. He concludes with the hope that the book has shown that “the ‘family of man’ is not an empty metaphor, however dysfunctional that family usually is; that all humanity has the same needs and preoccupations, fears and hopes. Objects force us to the humble recognition that since our ancestors left East Africa to populate the world we have changed very little. Whether in stone or paper, gold, feathers or silicon, it is certain we will go on making objects that shape or reflect our world and that will define us to future generations.”

This thoughtful tome includes 100-plus illustrations, eight maps, a list of the objects discussed with their dimensions and British Museum inventory numbers, a bibliography, references and an index.

Neil MacGregor has been director of the British Museum since 2002. Previously, he was director of the National Gallery in London. In 2010 he was decorated by Queen Elizabeth II.