Michael Wood’s epic series moves into the revolutionary years after 500 BC — the Age of the Buddha.

Michael Wood's epic series moves into the revolutionary years after 500 BC - the Age of the Buddha. Traveling by road and rail between the ancient cities of the Ganges plain, he tells the tale of the young prince who gave up the good life and became the Buddha: "India's first and greatest protester." Then, moving by army convoy through Northern Iraq and down the Khyber Pass into Pakistan, Wood shows how Alexander the Great's invasion changed the course of India's history and inspired her first empire. He visits India's earliest capital, Patna, and using archaeology, legend and "India's Rosetta stone," explains how the ideas of the Buddha were turned into political reality by the great Indian emperor Ashoka - "one of the most remarkable figures in history" - who sowed the seeds of "history's most dangerous idea."