Davies, a teacher in Cardiff, has not only taken cognizance of, and fluidly applied, the new tools history avails itself of--such as economics and archaeology--he first wrote his history in Welsh. His tremendous exertion was something new that the readers of Wales recognized, and they made it a best-seller there. Davies unearths the evidence of prehistoric hill forts and Roman ruins; he delineates the feudal wars, the 1536 union with England and the ensuing Reformation; and he explains the transformations of the Industrial Revolution. Accurate in all details, using meaningful modern maps, balanced where doubts exist, this impressive history could be criticized as a labor of patriotic love, if not for the visibly high professional standard to which Davies adheres. Nothing even remotely as accomplished has been written about Wales since 1950. And, for a few future decades, don't expect a vessel this sturdy to pass by