Vidya Dehejia's India: A Story Through 100 Objects presents Indian history and culture through carefully chosen artifacts spanning five millennia. Dehejia, a distinguished art historian who has taught at Columbia University, selects objects ranging from Indus Valley seals to Bollywood film posters, from Chola bronzes to Gandhi's spinning wheel. Each object becomes a lens for exploring broader themes: trade and cultural exchange, religious devotion and artistic innovation, colonialism and independence. The book reveals how material culture embodies values and aspirations that written records often miss. A royal seal speaks to bureaucratic sophistication; a humble cooking pot illuminates daily life; a sculpture of a dancing Shiva encapsulates Hindu cosmology. Dehejia writes with scholarly authority but also with the enthusiasm of someone genuinely excited by what objects can tell us. She pays particular attention to objects that challenge Western assumptions about Indian art and history, including pieces that demonstrate the subcontinent's longstanding connections to Africa, Southeast Asia, and the Mediterranean world. The book functions both as an introduction to Indian civilization for newcomers and as a fresh perspective for those already knowledgeable. Richly illustrated and accessibly written, this is a model of how material culture can illuminate the human past.