Neil MacGregor

Neil MacGregor, former director of the British Museum, has forged a reputation for bringing history to life in an entirely new way with his best-selling A History of the World in 100 Objects and Germany. His dazzling, long- awaited new book Living With the Gods is a panoramic exploration of peoples, objects and religion over 40,000 years.

Neil uses a kaleidoscope of objects, monuments and ideas to illuminate the history of mankind’s beliefs, focusing on the shared narratives that have shaped our societies and our relationships with each other. Ely Cathedral embodies many of the themes in the book: ideas of community and belief, political power and sacred space. There is surely no more appropriate place to hear Neil expound his ideas, accompanied by a slideshow of images.