In 2010, 100 curators from the British Museum unveiled a massive project to tell the history of the world through objects – 100 objects to be exact. The results were unveiled on BBC Radio 4 first before becoming a fantastic book, A History of the World in 100 Objects. 

It’s such a fascinating idea and such a perfect medium for telling historical stories since so much of what we think of as “history” is ephemeral – events we can’t see for ourselves, people we can’t really imagine as real people, dates that seem so long ago that we can’t even imagine them.

Because I love this idea so much – and because it is September (even though I really just can’t believe it – the changing leaves tell me it must be true) and apple season – I’m going to tell do my own, slightly pared down version: the history of apples in 10 objects, based on my book, Apple: A Global History.

The fun begins tomorrow.