Michael Wood (historian)

Wood was born in Moss Side, Manchester. He attended Heald Place Primary School in Rusholme. When he was eight, his family moved to Paulden Avenue, Wythenshawe where he could see historic Baguley Hall from his bedroom window. He went to Benchill Primary School. At The Manchester Grammar School, he developed an interest in theatre, playing Grusha in the first British amateur production of Brecht's The Caucasian Chalk Circle. He took A-levels in English, French and History.[3]

Wood studied history and English at Oriel College, Oxford, touring the United States for six weeks in his final year, and graduated with a second class Bachelor of Arts degree. Later, he undertook post-graduate research in Anglo-Saxon history at Oriel. Three years into his research for a DPhil, he left to become a journalist with ITV.[1][3]

In the 1970s Wood worked for the BBC in Manchester. He was first a reporter and then an assistant producer on current affairs programmes, before returning to his love of history with his 1979–81 series In Search of the Dark Ages for BBC2.[4] He quickly became popular with female viewers for his blond good looks (he was humorously dubbed "the thinking woman's crumpet" by British newspapers), his deep voice, and his habit of wearing tight jeans and a sheepskin jacket.[5] Wood's work is also well known in the United States, where it receives much airplay on PBS and on various cable television networks. The series Legacy (1992) is one of his more frequently broadcast documentaries on US television.

Since 1990, Wood has been a director of independent television production company Maya Vision International. In 2006 he joined the British School of Archaeology in Iraq campaign, which aimed to train and encourage new Iraqi archaeologists, and he has lectured on the subject.[6] In 2013, Wood joined the University of Manchester as Professor of Public History.[7]

His girlfriend for ten years, in the late 1970s and early 1980s, was the journalist and broadcaster Pattie Coldwell.[8][9] He currently lives in north London with his wife, television producer Rebecca Ysabel Dobbs and two daughters, Minakshi and Jyoti.[10]

Wood was a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society[1] until 2007.[11][12] In 2009 he was awarded an Honorary Doctorate of Arts by Sunderland University.[13] This was followed by the honorary degree of Doctor of Letters by the University of Leicester in 2011, and in 2015 he was awarded the President's Medal by the British Academy.[14] Having previously acted as President of the Leicestershire Archaeological and Historical Society, in 2017 he accepted the position of Honorary Life Vice President, offered in recognition of his work on the documentary series Michael Wood's Story of England.[15] Michael Wood is currently the president of the Society for Anglo-Chinese Understanding, an organization founded in 1965 to promote understanding and friendship between the British and the Chinese people.

Wood was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the 2021 New Year Honours for services to public history and broadcasting.[16]

• In Search of the Dark Ages (1979–81)
• Great Railway Journeys ("Zambezi Express", 1980)
• Great Little Railways (episode 3: "Slow Train to Olympia", 1983)
• In Search of the Trojan War (1985)
• Domesday: A Search for the Roots of England (1986)
• Greece: The Hidden War (1986)
• Art of the Western World (1989)
• Legacy: A Search for the Origins of Civilisation (1992)
• Lifeboat (1993)
• In the Footsteps of Alexander the Great (1997)
• Conquistadors (2000)
• In Search of Shakespeare (2003)
• In Search of Myths and Heroes (2005)
• The Story of India (2007)
• Christina: A Medieval Life (2008)
• In Search of Beowulf (2009) (a.k.a. Michael Wood on Beowulf)
• Michael Wood's Story of England (2010)
• The Great British Story: A People's History (2012)
• King Alfred and the Anglo Saxons (2013)
• The Story of China (2016)

• Darshan: An Indian Journey (1989)
• Traveller's Tales: The Sacred Way (1991)
• Saddam's Killing Fields (1993)
• Secret History: Hitler's Search for the Holy Grail (1999)
• Gilbert White: Nature Man (2006)
• Christina: A Medieval Life (2008)
• Alexander's Greatest Battle (2009)
• Shakespeare's Mother; The Secret Life of a Tudor Woman (2015)
• Ovid: The Poet and the Emperor (2017)
• How China Got Rich (2019)
• Du Fu: China's Greatest Poet (2020)

• In Search of the Dark Ages (BBC Books, 1981)
• In Search of the Trojan War (1985)
• Domesday: A Search for the Roots of England (1988)
• Legacy: A Search for the Origins of Civilization (1992)
• The Smile of Murugan: A South Indian Journey (1995)
• In the Footsteps of Alexander the Great (1997)
• In Search of England: Journeys into the English Past (1999)
• Conquistadors (2000)
• In Search of Shakespeare (2003)
• In Search of Myths and Heroes (2005)
• India: An Epic Journey Across the Subcontinent (2007)
• The Story of England (2010)
• The Story of China (2020)

• Michael Wood at IMDb
• Michael Wood at the British Film Institute
• In the Footsteps of Alexander The Great at the Wayback Machine (archived 18 March 2008)

Writings

• The Story of the Conquistadors
• In Search of Shakespeare
• In Search of Myths and Heroes
• "The Life of an Anglo-Saxon Princess". The Guardian, 2010

Interview

• 2012 video interview