Historian and broadcaster Michael Wood is the University's newly appointed Professor in Public History. He will teach undergraduate and postgraduate students at the University, lead historical field trips and give three public lectures a year.
For thirty years now, Michael Wood has made compelling journeys into the past, which have brought history alive for countless readers and viewers. 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 has now 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 best-selling books. His recent series, Story of England, the tale of one village (Kibworth in Leicestershire) through history, was praised by the Independent as ‘the most innovative TV history series ever.’
Michael was born in Moss Side, Manchester and educated at Manchester Grammar School and Oriel College Oxford, where he did post-graduate research in Anglo-Saxon history. He is a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society, the RSA and the Society of Antiquaries, and a governor of the RSC.
Tristram Hunt has served as the Member of Parliament (Labour Party) for Stoke-on-Trent Central since May 2010. He is a shadow education spokesman, with responsibilities for youth services, further education and junior apprenticeships. Previously, he was a Member of the Select Committee on Political and Constitutional Reform, Member of the Joint Committee on Reform of the House of Lords and Chair of the All Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) on Energy Intensive Industries. He is also co-Chair of the APPG on Rebalancing the British Economy and the APPG on Publishing.
He took a First Class degree in history from the University of Cambridge (1995), before serving as an Exchange Fellow at the University of Chicago (1996), and returning to Cambridge to complete his doctoral thesis on Victorian civic pride (2000). After working for Tony Blair and the Labour Party HQ on the 1997 General Election campaign, he became a Special Adviser to Science Minister Lord Sainsbury (1997-2000), Associate Fellow at the Centre for History and Economics, King’s College, Cambridge and Senior Fellow at the Institute for Public Policy Research.
Between 2001-2010, Tristram combined his post as lecturer in history at Queen Mary with work as a history broadcaster, presenting over fifteen radio and television programmes for the BBC and Channel 4. In addition to making regular contributions to The Guardian and The Observer, he is also the author of The English Civil War: At First Hand (2002), Building Jerusalem: The Rise and Fall of the Victorian City (2004), and the award-winning biography, The Frock-coated Communist: The Revolutionary Life of Friedrich Engels (2009).
He is a Trustee of the History of Parliament Trust, fellow of the Royal Historical Society, and Senior Lecturer in Modern British History at Queen Mary, University of London
PLEASE NOTE THIS EVENT IS TAKING PLACE AT UNIVERSITY PLACE
