J. C. Davis
British historian
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James Colin Davis (28 May 1940 – 25 July 2021) was a British historian, whose work often focused on the Utopian thinkers of the 17th century. He has been described as a "historian of political and religious thought and a brilliant and provocative iconoclast".[1] The book Liberty, Authority, Formality: Political Ideas and Culture, 1600-1900 was written in honour of Davis at the time of his retirement as professor.[2]
28 May 1940
J. C. Davis | |
|---|---|
| Born | James Colin Davis 28 May 1940 Yorkshire, England |
| Died | 25 July 2021 (aged 81) Glasgow, Scotland |
| Academic background | |
| Alma mater | University of Manchester |
| Academic work | |
| Discipline | Historian |
| Institutions | |
Life
Professor Colin Davis was born in Hesse, Yorkshire into a fisherman's family.[3] He received his education at the University of Manchester and after a brief period at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office he moved to New Zealand to teach at the University of Waikato.[3] He worked and studied at a number of universities in New Zealand before setting up the School of History at the University of East Anglia, Norwich.[4] Davis retired in 2004. He subsequently moved to Glasgow where he died in July 2021.[5]
Books
Published in 2001, Davis's comprehensive study Oliver Cromwell was described as "the best analysis we have of Cromwell's religion and its politics" by the Journal of Modern History.[6] Davis's 1986 work Fear, Myth and History: The Ranters and the Historians was particularly noted for questioning whether the radical, nonconformists known as the Ranters ever existed per se, being rather a myth created by conservatives to endorse traditional values by comparison with an unimaginably radical other.[7] Other works by J. C. Davis include Utopia and the Ideal Society: A Study of English Utopian Writing, 1516-1700 (1983),[8] and a biography of Gerrard Winstanley co-authored with J. D. Alsop for the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography.[9]