Hywel Williams is an historian and commentator whose work has been translated into over fifteen languages.  His latest book, THE AGE OF CHIVALRY: Culture and Power in Medieval Europe, 950-1450 (2011) is a synoptic survey of the continent during the middle ages.  Reflecting recent research and taking into account developments in central and eastern Europe as well as in the west, it is the first such single volume history to be published in English for many years.  EMPEROR OF THE WEST: Charlemagne and the Carolingian Empire (2010) describes the achievements and legacy of the ruler whose revival of imperial rule in western Europe transformed the continent during the early middle ages and set the scene for the subsequent evolution of its civilisation.  The book’s paperback edition appeared in 2011.  SUN KINGS: A History of Magnificent Kingship (2007) accounts for the origins and successes of one of humanity’s more enduring forms of government, and IN OUR TIME: Speeches That Shaped the Modern World (2008) analyses the impact of oratory on public life since 1945.  DAYS THAT CHANGED THE WORLD: The Fifty Defining Events of World History (2006) has had a global impact in its successive editions both within and beyond the English speaking world. All the above titles were published by Quercus.

 

In his book CASSELL’S CHRONOLOGY OF WORLD HISTORY: Dates, Events and Ideas That Made History (Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 2005)  Hywel Williams analyses the significance of the key events of human history from the city states of ancient Mesopotamia to the globalized, post-millennial world of today.  BRITAIN’S POWER ELITES: The Rebirth of a Ruling Class (Constable and Robinson, 2006) described the transfer of influence in the late 20th century from political and professional elites to financial ones.  GUILTY MEN: Conservative Decline and Fall 1992-7 (Aurum, 1998) has become the classic account of a crisis at the heart of government and is partly based on personal experiences as a Cabinet political adviser during the mid-1990s.  OLD SCHOOL TIES (Sinclair Stevenson 1992) is a contemporary survey of British education and reflects the author’s time as a lecturer and schoolmaster, first at the University of Cambridge and then at Rugby School.  Hywel Williams is currently writing a history of the British Isles which will be published by Atlantic Books in 2012.

 

A regular reviewer for the Times Literary Supplement and the Spectator, Hywel Williams’s blog appears on the Daily Mail’s online edition.  His articles have been published in a very wide variety of newspapers and magazines including The Guardian, Times, Sunday Times, Mail on Sunday, Observer, Spectator, New Statesman, History Today, and The Tablet.  Television credits, as writer and presenter, include a six part history of the late 20th century (S4C, 2009), a profile of Joseph Ratzinger (BBC4, 2005), Promised Land- a six part history of Wales 1945-2005 (ITV), a two part investigation into the life and times of David Lloyd George (S4C 2006), as well documentaries on modern architecture and the legal profession that were broadcast on S4C in 2004 and 2007.

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