Michael Wood

Michael Wood has travelled the length and breadth of China, the world's oldest civilization and longest lasting state, to tell a thrilling story of intense drama, fabulous creativity, and deep humanity that stretches back thousands of years. After a century and a half of foreign invasion, civil war, and revolution, China has once again returned to center stage as a global superpower and the world's second largest economy. But how did it become so...

This six part series explores the influence on ancient culture on our lives today. Host Michael Wood visits the ancient cities and great ports of India and China, the deserts of Egypt and Iraq, the Mexico of the Inca, Aztec and Mayan peoples, the Greek and Roman monuments of Europe and the jungles of Central America searching for the living legacies of these once great civilizations. The series traces how the institutions that arose with urban civilization...

Historian Michael Wood leads a nine-part tour through 2,500 years of Western painting, sculpture, and architecture, filmed at over 150 locations in eight countries and featuring commentary by historians and scholars.