The Great British Story: A People's History

- Season 1

(2012)

Michael Wood kicks off the series by looking at the roots of early Britain. He marvels at the resilience and diversity of its people who turned a small island into a great power, and celebrates "one of the most astonishing tales in history". He reveals how the Romans - who named this far corner of their empire 'Britannia' - envied the land of the Britons with its "winters not too cold, and summers not too hot".

This second episode explores how our modern ethnic and linguistic identities began to take shape after the Dark Ages, and how English, Scots and Welsh nations emerged under the impact of the Viking invasions.

This episode explores how the Normans consolidated their power by building castles all over England. Michael Wood visits the excavation of an enormous Norman Castle mound at Mount Bures, Essex, and returns to the community big dig at Long Melford to find out what life was like for the Anglo-Saxon peasantry in the decades after 1066. Going into the 12th century, the programme looks at the medieval beginnings of trade and industry in Bristol, Wales and the Black Country. Finally, Michael explores the battle for rights enshrined in Magna Carta.

This episode covers the catastrophic 14th century, including the Black Death and the Peasants Revolt. Delving into local records Michael Wood tracks the plague across Britain from Little Cornard in Suffolk to Abergavenny in the Welsh borders, and from St Andrews in Scotland to Dublin.

Charting the Reformation, Michael visits a fascinating community project revealing medieval wall paintings in Llancarfan, near Cardiff, and follows the Cornish Prayer Book rebellion from one parish to its defeat in battle by the government's army in Exeter. As the Reformation proceeds, other forces are working in British society with the rise of industry and commerce. In Scotland there's the amazing discovery of the remains of a mine dug under the River Forth. In Bristol, Tudor merchants open up Atlantic trade and the first black community is found in Whitechapel, ...

Michael tells the story of the British Civil Wars, seen from the perspective of the people right across the British Isles. In search of their experience he travels to Dublin to uncover the horrors of the Irish Rebellion, to County Down with the Ulster Scots, and to Cornwall where an amazing local project is mapping the battlefield finds of Parliament's greatest defeat. Uncovering little known stories in the arms manufacturing centres of the Black Country and Birmingham, Michael shows how the war split local communities.

Michael Wood uncovers the extraordinary tale of the Industrial Revolution which turned Britain into the world's first industrial society. Exploring the deep roots of British industry, Michael visits miners in England and Wales. In Liverpool he shows how slavery underpinned British wealth and trade, which was expanding to India. As urban society grew and the countryside was depopulated by enclosures and clearances, Michael shows how the rural workforce responded. Meanwhile, Enlightenment ideals were transforming society.

In this final episode, Michael Wood takes an overview of the momentous history of the last century between the jubilees of 1897 and 2012, when the people of Britain went through two world wars and saw their industries and their empire shrink, transforming the country from the greatest power on Earth to the world's first post-industrial society. And now as old identities break down and new ones form, Michael asks whether the Union itself will survive. And after nearly two thousand years what lessons does our common history as Britons have to teach us?