The Story of India

Michael Wood’s The Story of India is a spellbinding narrative on the 10,000-year history of India, also featured in a BBC TV series. Home today to more than a fifth of the world’s population, India gave birth to the oldest and most influential civilisation on Earth, to four world religions, and to the world’s largest democracy. Now, as India bids to become a global economic giant, Wood sets out to trace the roots of India’s present in the incredible riches of her past.

When Marco Polo first visited India in the 13th century, he described the country as “the richest province in the world… A land of wonders”. His observation is no less true today. Everything about India is older, bigger, more colourful, more diverse and more intriguing than anywhere else.

From the Khyber Pass and the Himalayas to the tropical jungles of India’s deep south, this original and striking survey of Indian history provides vivid portraits of India’s regions and cultures, and new insights into some of the history’s greatest figures: from the Buddha to Gandhi and Nehru. It explores the ways in which Indian ideas and inventions have shaped the history of the world, and shows how some of ancient India’s conclusions about the nature of civilisation have lost none of their relevance for our own times.