Story of China: a portrait of a civilisation and its people. Michael Wood. 2020.

China is the oldest living civilisation on earth and an increasingly influential player on the global stage, but its history is still surprisingly little known in the wider world. Now Michael Wood brings it all together in this enthralling account of China’s 4000-year-old tradition, which intersperses the grand sweep of history with local and personal stories, woven together with his own experience of the country.

Story of China uses the latest archaeological discoveries; correspondence and court cases going back to the main and Han dynasties; family letters from soldiers in the Terracotta Army; stories from Silk Road merchants and Buddhist travellers, diaries of emperors, poets and peasants to bring history vividly to life packed with intimate detail and colourful voices, the reader is taken from the desolate Mongolian steppes to life stationed on the Great Wall, and from the Forbidden City to the ultra-modern world of Beijing, Shanghai and Hong Kong.