In this landmark six-part series for PBS and the BBC, Michael Wood embarks on a colorful and exciting journey through contemporary India, seeking clues to her past from the present and clues to her future from the past.
India, the world’s largest democracy and emerging economic giant, is now known worldwide for its mastery of computer technology as well as its multi-armed gods and renowned spiritual traditions. But India is also the oldest surviving civilization in the world, with continuity dating back to prehistoric times.
Like other great civilizations – such as Greece or Egypt – it experienced not one but several glorious golden ages of art and culture over the course of thousands of years. Its great thinkers and religious leaders changed the face of the world forever. But while the splendor of Rome, Egypt and Greece have all been the subject of television portraits, there is no Indian television history on our screens yet.
For the first time, the series sets out to do just that: by presenting to a world audience the wonders of India; the incredible richness and diversity of its peoples, cultures and landscapes; and the intense drama of its past, including some of the most important and exciting in world history and touching events.
Beginnings. The first episode looks at identity and the roots of India’s famous “unity in diversity”. Using all the tools available to the historical detective – from DNA to climate science, oral survivals, ancient manuscripts, archaeology, and exploration of the living cultures of the subcontinent.
The Power of Ideas. The second episode of Michael Wood’s journey through Indian history covers the last centuries BCE – the age of the Buddha, the coming of the Greeks and the rule of the emperor Ashoka, one of the greatest figures in world history.
Spice Routes and Silk Roads. The next episode in the story of India takes us to the early centuries CE, the time of the Roman Empire in the west, and to “the happiest time in the history of the world” as the historian Edward Gibbon put it.
Ages of Gold. Episode Four is the story of India in the Middle Ages. At the time of the fall of the Roman Empire in the West, and the European Dark Ages, India had a series of great flowerings of culture, both in the north and the south.
The Meeting of Two Oceans. The fifth episode of the story of India takes us to the time of the Renaissance in Europe, when India was the richest, most populous civilization in the world.
Freedom. The final episode tells how a foreign multinational corporation thousands of miles away (the East India Company) gradually and almost by accident took control of a large part of the Indian subcontinent.
