Michael David Wood (born 23 July 1948) is a historian and broadcaster. He has presented numerous well-known television documentary series from the late 1970s to the present day. Wood has also written a number of books on history, including In Search of the Dark Ages, The Domesday Quest, The Story of England, The Story of India, The Story of China, and In Search of Shakespeare.[1][2] His works have included English history, history of various civilizations including the Greek, Chinese and Indian, and others.[3][4][5] He has been a Professor of Public History at the University of Manchester since 2013.[6]
When studying at the Manchester Grammar School, Wood wrote a letter in response to an article by Montgomery of Alamein about how the Anglo-Saxons had lost in 1066 because they were a backward bunch of pot-bellied drunks. Wood's letter was written as King Harold and explained what had really happened. Montgomery, slightly prickly, wrote to the school saying that he gathered that King Harold was a pupil at the school.[8]
Wood was admitted to Oriel College, Oxford on a schorship to read history but switched to English as he felt that the history curriculum at Oriel at that time was rather like doing A-levels again, and he instead wanted to get on to the real sources.[8] Wood graduated with a second-class Bachelor of Arts degree which he says might well have been his own doing as he hadn't been to any lectures or tutorials in his penultimate term, partly due to a chance to tour the United States for six weeks with A Midsummer Night's Dream.[8] Later he undertook postgraduate research in Anglo-Saxon history at Oriel. Three years into his research for a DPhil, he left to become a journalist with ITV.[1][8]
Career
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 which he presented.[9][10]
Wood founded an independent television production company Maya Vision International,[11][12] which has produced more than 120 documentaries that have been shown in more than 140 countries and territories.[11][13]
Wood has written several books accompanying his television series.[14] In 2006, he joined the British School of Archaeology in Iraq campaign, the aim of which was to train and encourage new Iraqi archaeologists, and he has lectured on the subject.[15] In 2013, Wood joined the University of Manchester as Professor of Public History.[6] He has long been a contributor to BBC History Magazine.[16]
Image
Wood, when he started his career as a presenter, quickly became popular with female viewers for his blond good looks, deep voice and habit of wearing tight jeans and a sheepskin jacket. He was humorously dubbed "the thinking woman's crumpet" by British newspapers.[10] He is recognized for effectively blending academic scholarship with accessibility.[17][18]
Views
Wood has stated that while empires were often built on the power of swords, India alone created an empire of spirit.[19] He introduces India's history and culture in two sweeping sentences as: "Over the next 3,000 years Greeks and Kushans, Turks and Afghans, Mughals and British, Alexander, Tamburlaine and Babur, will all come and fall under India’s spell. And India’s greatest strength, one known only to the oldest civilizations, will be to adapt and change, to use the gifts of history and to accept its wounds, but somehow, magically, to be always India."[20]
Wood favours returning artefacts looted during the age of imperialism. He has publicly supported moving the Elgin Marbles from the British Museum back to Attica.[5]
Wood has termed the destruction in Gaza in the Gaza war more thorough than any ancient siege.[21]
Writing in 2016 for the BBC History Magazine, Wood seemed to suggest that he favoured adding a statue of African hero/heroine in response to a movement asking to remove Oxford's Cecil Rhodes statue at Oriel College.[22]
In 2024, Wood said that with torrent of fake news and imagined histories, it is critical for historians of all persuasions to create good narratives of the past but warns that no definitive story of the past is possible or desirable because the past is always changing.[24]
Wood has described the use of term 'golden age' as follows.[20]
"All cultures of course have fixed on the idea of a great past, a golden age. But golden ages are imagined pasts. Real history is more complex, never static, always moving. And creating it in a realistic way for each generation is not just the preserve of politicians and thinkers, or the job of historians, but (and this is even more true in the age of the internet) of all of us. For identity is not a fixed thing, and it never was. It is always in the making, and never made."
Personal life
Wood's girlfriend for ten years, in the late 1970s and early 1980s, was the journalist and broadcaster Pattie Coldwell.[25][26]
Wood lives in north London with his wife, television producer Rebecca Ysabel Dobbs, with whom he has two daughters.[27] His book "A South Indian Journey: The Smile of Murugan" was inspired by a temple astrologer who had accurately predicted his marriage and the birth of his two daughters.[3] Both his daughters have Indian names.[28]
Wood credits his family history, specifically his relatives' roles in World War II, for triggering interest in the past.[29]
"My uncle Sid was torpedoed and sunk in the middle of the Mediterranean and swam through burning oil; Dad was in the hospital at Haslar on D-Day looking after the dead and the dying; Mum was caught in the blitz in the middle of Manchester and sheltered in a doorway all night."[30]
The Independent has called The Story of England "the most innovative history series ever made for TV."[46]
The Chinese news agency, Xinhua, has said that The Story of China had "transcended the barriers of ethnicity and belief and brought something inexplicably powerful and touching to the TV audience."[47]
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