The smallest exhibit may contain the detail that makes the century feel human.

Scale and impact come apart in museums. Treaties and monuments explain what happened, while a child’s shoe, a shopping list or a mended sleeve is what makes an era stop being a period and start being people who were cold, hungry and fond of things. Small objects survive by accident and carry disproportionate weight. They connect because they are recognisable rather than important.

In the next museum you visit, find the smallest thing in the room and stay with it. Ask what an ordinary day around it looked like. That is usually what you still remember months later.