Audiobooks Narrated by Michael Wood

In the Footsteps of Du Fu

A beautifully illustrated travelogue, chronicling the life and work of one of the world greatest poets. Du Fu (712-70) is one of China's greatest poets. His career coincided with periods of famine, war and huge upheaval, yet his secular philosophical vision, combined with his empathy for the common folk of his nation, ensured that he soon became revered. Like Shakespeare or Dante, his poetry resonates in a timeless manner that ensures it is always relevant and offers something new to the modern generation. Now, in this beautifully illustrated book, broadcaster and historian Michael Wood follows in his footsteps to try to understand the places that inspired Du Fu to write some of the most famous and best-loved poetry the world has known. The themes he wrote about - friendship, family, human suffering - are universal and in our troubled times are just as relevant as they were almost 1,300 years ago.  

Michael Wood (Author), Michael Wood (Narrator)

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Anglo-Saxon Portraits: Thirty ground-breaking men and women of the early English nation

The half millennium between the creation of the English nation in around 550 and the Norman Conquest in 1066 was a formative one. This groundbreaking series rediscovers the Anglo-Saxons through vivid portraits of thirty incredible men and women, as told by their contemporary admirers. Nobel prize-winner Seamus Heaney discusses the Beowulf bard; former Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams focuses on St Augustine, the first Archbishop of Canterbury; Michael Wood celebrates Penda, the much-maligned last pagan king of England; Barbara Yorke tells the story of Hild of Whitby, the powerful abbess and largely forgotten pre-feminism model; and writer David Almond investigates the oldest surviving English poet, Caedmon. From royalty to peasants, the women behind the Bayeux Tapestry to rebellious nuns, Anglo-Saxon Portraits unravels the mysteries of a too often forgotten period in British history.

Various (Author), Barbara Yorke, David Almond, Full Cast, Michael Wood, Rowan Williams, Seamus Heaney (Narrator)

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The Story of China: A portrait of a civilisation and its people

'A learned, wise, wonderfully written single volume history of a civilisation that I knew I should know more about' Tom Holland 'Masterful and engrossing...well-paced, eminently readable and well-timed. A must for those who want - and need - to know about the China of yesterday, today and tomorrow' Peter Frankopan China's story is extraordinarily rich and dramatic. Now Michael Wood, one of the UK's pre-eminent historians, brings it all together in a major new one-volume history of China that is essential listening for anyone who wants to understand its burgeoning role in our world today. China is the oldest living civilisation on earth, but its history is still surprisingly little known in the wider world. Michael Wood's sparkling narrative, which mingles the grand sweep with local and personal stories, woven together with the author's own travel journals, is an enthralling account of China's 4000-year-old tradition, taking in life stationed on the Great Wall or inside the Forbidden City. The story is enriched with the latest archaeological and documentary discoveries; correspondence and court cases going back to the Qin and Han dynasties; family letters from soldiers in the real-life Terracotta Army; stories from Silk Road merchants and Buddhist travellers, along with memoirs and diaries of emperors, poets and peasants.    In the modern era, the book is full of new insights, with the electrifying manifestos of the feminist revolutionaries Qiu Jin and He Zhen, extraordinary eye-witness accounts of the Japanese invasion, the Great Famine and the Cultural Revolution under Chairman Mao, and fascinating newly published sources for the great turning points in China's modern history, including the Tiananmen Square crisis of 1989, and the new order of  President Xi Jinping.   A compelling portrait of a single civilisation over an immense period of time, the book is full of intimate detail and colourful voices, taking us from the desolate Mongolian steppes to the ultra-modern world of Beijing, Shanghai and Hong Kong. It also asks what were the forces that have kept China together for so long? Why was China overtaken by the west after the 18th century? What lies behind China's extraordinary rise today? The Story of China tells a thrilling story of intense drama, fabulous creativity and deep humanity; a portrait of a country that will be of the greatest importance to the world in the twenty-first century.

Michael Wood (Author), Michael Wood (Narrator)

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