Volume 41, Number 21 · December 22, 1994
'A Fair and Tranquil Land'
By R.J.W. Evans
Hanes Cymru
by John Davies
Allen Lane/Penguin, 710 pp., £9.95 (paper)
A History of Wales
by John Davies
Allen Lane/Penguin, 718 pp., $35.00
Serious general histories of Wales are rare enough. For such a work to be published first in the Welsh language, and only later in English, is unheard of. Thus in its very conception John Davies's book makes a kind of statement. Those versed in European historiography may be reminded of a famous case of linguistic shift 150 years ago. František Palacký began his history of Bohemia in German, the language of polite society; but he continued it in Czech, the mother tongue of a majority of the people. The first volume of his Dejiny národu Ceského v Cechách a na Morave [1] appeared in the revolutionary March days of 1848, and Palacký found himself the founderleader of the Czech national movement.
Review, 4348 words
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