John Keay

John Keay is the author of numerous classic histories and travel works. He specialises in Asian subjects but lives in Scotland and is co-editor, with Julia Keay, of the seminal Collins Encylopaedia of Scotland (2nd edition 2001). His first book, Into India (1973), remained in print for twenty-five years and his next two, now issued as The Emplorers of the Western Himalayas, are still in print.

In the 1980s he worked as a roving writer/presenter for BBC Radio 3 and 4 but has since concentrated on books, producing works on the East India Company and the history of exploration.

His twentieth-century histories include the acclaimed Last Post; The End of Empire in the Far East (1997); Sowing the Wind: The Seeds of Conflict in the Middle East (2003) and Mad About the Mekong (2005). All these titles have also appeared in US editions and several have been translated.

Published mainly by HarperCollins and John Murray, John Keay enjoys an enviable reputation as a writer of authority on many subjects and as one of our most stylish and accessible historians.