John Davies (1938 – 2015) was born in Rhondda and studied at both University College, Cardiff, and Trinity College, Cambridge. A historian, and a television and radio broadcaster. After teaching Welsh history at the University of Wales, Aberystwyth, he retired to Cardiff, and appeared frequently as a presenter and contributor to history programmes on television and radio. In the mid-1980s, Davies was commissioned to write a concise history of Wales by Penguin Books 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.
Books
- Cardiff and the Marquesses of Bute, 1980
- A History of Wales, Penguin, 1994
- Broadcasting and the BBC in Wales, 1994
- The Celts, Cassell & Co, 2000
- The Welsh Academy Encyclopaedia of Wales, 2008
- The Making of Wales, The History Press, 2009
- Wales: 100 Places to See Before You Die (with Marian Delyth), 2010
- Fy Hanes I: Hunangofiant (autobiography in Welsh), 2014
- A Life in History (autobiography translated into English by Jon Gower), 2015