Michael Wood was born in Manchester and educated at Manchester Grammar School and Oriel College, Oxford, where he did postgraduate research in Anglo-Saxon history. A broadcaster and filmmaker, he is the author of several highly praised books on English history, including In Search of the Dark Ages, The Domesday Quest and In Search of England. He has over eighty documentary films to his name, including Art of the Western World, Legacy, In the Footsteps of Alexander the Great, Conquistadors, In Search of Shakespeare and In Search of Myths and Heroes. The writer behind three BBC films about Shakespeare’s early history plays, he was a contributor to Shakespearean Perspective (1985). Michael Wood is a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society.