In The Story of England Michael Wood tells the extraordinary story of one English community over fifteen centuries, from the moment that the Roman Emperor Honorius sent his famous letter in 410 advising the English to look to their own defences to the village as it is today.

The village of Kibworth in Leicestershire lies at the very centre of England. It has a church, some pubs, the Grand Union Canal, a First World War Memorial - and many centuries of recorded history. In the thirteenth century the village was bought by William de Merton, who later founded Merton College, Oxford, with the result that documents covering 750 years of village history are lodged at the college.
Building on this unique archive, and enlisting the help of the current inhabitants of Kibworth, with a village-wide archeological dig, with the first complete DNA profile of an English village and with use of local materials like family memorabilia, the story of Kibworth is the story of England itself, a 'Who Do You Think You Are?' for the entire nation.

'Better than any historian for decades, [in In Search of England] Wood brings home not just the ways in which buildings, landscapes and written texts may be read, but the sensual beauty of encounters with them' TLS

Michael Wood was born and educated in Manchester. He was an open scholar in Modern History at Oriel College, Oxford, where he held a Bishop Fraser scholarship in Medieval History as a postgraduate. He has made a number of internationally successful tv series, including In the Footsteps of Alexander the Great, and four of his books have been UK non-fiction number one bestsellers. His highly acclaimed book of essays on early English history, In Search of England, was published by Penguin in 1999.

About the Author
Michael Wood was born and educated in Manchester, and studied Modern History and later Anglo-Saxon History at Oxford. He has made over 100 tv films, and written four number-one bestselling books including In the Footsteps of Alexander the Great and The Story of India. He lives in Hampstead, north London, with his wife and two daughters.


Book Information
ISBN 9780670919048
Author Michael Wood
Format Paperback
Page Count 480
Imprint Penguin Books Ltd
Publisher Penguin Books Ltd
Weight(grams) 354g
Dimensions(mm) 198mm * 129mm * 29mm