Hi, it's Nicola Cocklin.

Young people have been making history for years, but we don't often hear about them.

My brand new series on BBC Sounds sets out to put this right.

In history's youngest heroes, I'll be revealing the fascinating stories of 12 young people

who've played a major role in history and who've helped shape our world.

Like Audrey Hepburn, Nelson Mandela, Louis Braille

and Lady Jane Grey, history's youngest heroes with me, Nicola Cochlin. Listen on BBC Sounds.

Hello, I'm Kirsty Young. Thank you for downloading this podcast of Desert Island Discs from BBC Radio 4.

For rights reasons, the music choices are shorter than in the radio broadcast.

For more information about the writer and historian Francis Wood.

As head of the Chinese collections at the British Library,

she is effectively the gatekeeper to some of the rarest and most precious documents in the world. Her life's been

immersed in the language and culture of the Far East. And along the way, she's also spent

time throwing hand grenades, planting rice seedlings in the paddy fields, and bundling Chinese

cabbages. She is a powerful advocate for a land that's often perceived in the West as impenetrable.

From China's extraordinary history to its arrivals and economic superpower, it is, she says,

a bottomless pit of interesting stuff.

Her books have included an exploration of life during the Cultural Revolution and an unpicking of one of China's most well-known visitors,

the Italian merchant Marco Polo.

He didn't, she suggests, ever set foot in the place.

We're going to come to the hand grenades and the paddy fields a little later, I hope, Francis would.

But let's start with Marco Polo.

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