Baring gives us a tour of sculpture, weaving from prehistory to modern day and attempting to understand and explain our need to make objects which are imbued with a meaning greater than what they physically represent. She looks at sculpture through various lenses, the most important of which is in relation to the word totem and what it means both for art and for cultural understanding. She treads a difficult line at times, dealing with the elements of art and history that a lot of people tend to obscure because they are problematic. Thoughtful, generous and grounded in feeling as much as technical knowledge. I really enjoyed this.