John Davies (historian)
Encyclopedia
John Davies is a Welsh
Welsh people
The Welsh people are an ethnic group and nation associated with Wales and the Welsh language.John Davies argues that the origin of the "Welsh nation" can be traced to the late 4th and early 5th centuries, following the Roman departure from Britain, although Brythonic Celtic languages seem to have...

 historian, and a television and radio broadcaster.

Davies was born in the Rhondda
Rhondda
Rhondda , or the Rhondda Valley , is a former coal mining valley in Wales, formerly a local government district, consisting of 16 communities built around the River Rhondda. The valley is made up of two valleys, the larger Rhondda Fawr valley and the smaller Rhondda Fach valley...

, Wales
Wales
Wales is a country that is part of the United Kingdom and the island of Great Britain, bordered by England to its east and the Atlantic Ocean and Irish Sea to its west. It has a population of three million, and a total area of 20,779 km²...

, and studied at both University College, Cardiff
Cardiff University
Cardiff University is a leading research university located in the Cathays Park area of Cardiff, Wales, United Kingdom. It received its Royal charter in 1883 and is a member of the Russell Group of Universities. The university is consistently recognised as providing high quality research-based...

, and Trinity College, Cambridge
Trinity College, Cambridge
Trinity College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge. Trinity has more members than any other college in Cambridge or Oxford, with around 700 undergraduates, 430 graduates, and over 170 Fellows...

. He is married with four children. After teaching Welsh history at the University of Wales, Aberystwyth
University of Wales, Aberystwyth
Aberystwyth University is a university located in Aberystwyth, Wales. Aberystwyth was a founding Member Institution of the former federal University of Wales. As of late 2006, the university had over 12,000 students spread across seventeen academic departments.The university was founded in 1872 as...

, he retired to Cardiff
Cardiff
Cardiff is the capital, largest city and most populous county of Wales and the 10th largest city in the United Kingdom. The city is Wales' chief commercial centre, the base for most national cultural and sporting institutions, the Welsh national media, and the seat of the National Assembly for...

, and appears frequently as a presenter and contributor to history
History
History is the discovery, collection, organization, and presentation of information about past events. History can also mean the period of time after writing was invented. Scholars who write about history are called historians...

 programmes on television
Television
Television is a telecommunication medium for transmitting and receiving moving images that can be monochrome or colored, with accompanying sound...

 and radio
Radio
Radio is the transmission of signals through free space by modulation of electromagnetic waves with frequencies below those of visible light. Electromagnetic radiation travels by means of oscillating electromagnetic fields that pass through the air and the vacuum of space...

.

In the mid-eighties, Davies was commissioned to write a concise history of Wales
History of Wales
The history of Wales begins with the arrival of human beings in the region thousands of years ago. Neanderthals lived in what is now Wales, or Cymru in Welsh, at least 230,000 years ago, while Homo sapiens arrived by about 29,000 years ago...

 by Penguin Books
Penguin Books
Penguin Books is a publisher founded in 1935 by Sir Allen Lane and V.K. Krishna Menon. Penguin revolutionised publishing in the 1930s through its high quality, inexpensive paperbacks, sold through Woolworths and other high street stores for sixpence. Penguin's success demonstrated that large...

 to add to its Pelican series of the histories of nations. The decision by Penguin to commission the volume in Welsh was "unexpected and highly commendable," wrote Davies.

"I seized the opportunity to write of Wales and the Welsh. When I had finished, I had a typescript which was almost three times larger then the original commission," wrote Davies. The original voluminous typescript was first published in hardback under the Allen Lane imprint. Davies took a sabbatical from his post at the University College of Wales and wrote most of the chapters while touring Europe. Davies dedicated Hanes Cymru to his wife, Janet Mackenzie Davies.

Hanes Cymru was translated into English and published in 1993, as there was "a demand among English-speakers to read what was already available to Welsh-speakers," wrote Davies. A revised edition was published (in both languages) in 2007.

With the continued growth of Welsh institutions and the growth in the number of Welsh speakers, Davies wrote in 1992 "it is more stimulating to be a member of the Welsh nation in the last decade of the twentieth century then it has ever been before."

In 2005 Davies received the Glyndŵr Award
Glyndwr Award
The Glyndŵr Award is made for an Outstanding Contribution to the Arts in Wales. It is given by the Machynlleth Tabernacle Trust to pre-eminent figures in music, art and literature in rotation...

 for an Outstanding Contribution to the Arts in Wales during the Machynlleth Festival
Machynlleth Festival
The Machynlleth Festival takes place in the Auditorium of The Tabernacle, Machynlleth, in late August every year. During the week eminent performers take part in events ranging from recitals for children to jazz...

. He won the 2010 Wales Book of the Year
Wales Book of the Year
The Wales Book of the Year is a Welsh literary award given annually to the best Welsh and English language works in the fields of fiction and literary criticism by Welsh or Welsh interest authors...

 for Cymru: Y 100 lle i'w gweld cyn marw.

Works

  • A History of Wales, Penguin, 1994, ISBN 0-14-014581-8 (Revised edition 2007, ISBN 0-14-028475-3)
  • Cardiff and the Marquesses of Bute, (Writers of Wales), University of Wales Press, January 1980, ISBN 0-7083-0761-2
  • Broadcasting and the BBC in Wales currently working; television medium
  • The Making of Wales, The History Press, 2nd edition printing: Oct 1, 2009, ISBN 0-7524-5241-X
  • The Celts, Cassell & Co, 2000 ISBN 0-304-35590-9
  • The Welsh Academy Encyclopaedia of Wales, University of Wales Press
    University of Wales Press
    The University of Wales Press was founded in 1922 as a central service of the University of Wales. It publishes academic journals and around sixty books a year in the English and Welsh languages, based around a core of six subjects: History; Political Philosophy and Religious Studies;Welsh and...

    , April 17, 2008, ISBN 0-7083-1953-X
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