Biographical note
Michael Wood is Professor in Public History at the University of Manchester, as well as his work as a broadcaster bringing history alive through his compelling journeys into the past. In addition, he is the author of several highly praised books on English history including In Search of the Dark Ages, Domesday, and In Search of England. He is, perhaps, even better known for having made well over one hundred documentary films, among them Art of the Western World, In Search of the Trojan War, In the Footsteps of Alexander the Great, Conquistadors and The Story of India – all of which were accompanied by bestselling books.
Event Details
Michael Wood tells the story of how two former refugees from Syria and Libya laid the foundations of English culture when they arrived in Kent in 669. For over the next decades (in Hadrian’s case 40 years) the two would lay the foundations of education in England, and Michael will tell their extraordinary story with the help of recent manuscript discoveries. They were, Michael will argue, the most important people in the story of education in Britain, and Hadrian indeed perhaps the most important black Briton. An eye-opening journey into the roots of English culture - and into the story of Canterbury, for, according to Bede, it was ‘the happiest time since the English first came to Britain.’.