Dan Jones

Dan Jones on Castles

We are happy to welcome bestselling historian, TV presenter and award-winning journalist Dan Jones back to St Andrews. In Castles, Dan tells a gripping history of the world told through over three thousand years of iconic strongholds.

Castles have been built to defend humanity for millennia - from the walls of Troy and the desert bastion of Krak des Chevaliers in Syria; to Windsor Castle and the Tower of London; to Himeji in Japan and the Maginot Line in the Second World War. They have inspired terror and ambition, foiled conquering forces, and been deployed as the ultimate expression of wealth, status and supremacy.

Jones leads readers on a journey through centuries and across continents as each castle tells a unique story of power, politics and survival, revealing the shifting tides of warfare, the rise and fall of empires, the resilience of people under siege and the flourishing of new ideas.

Dan Jones' books, which have sold more than a million copies worldwide, include the Sunday Times bestsellers The Plantagenets, The Templars , Power and Thrones and Henry V. His fiction includes the acclaimed Essex Dogs trilogy, set during the Hundred Years War, concluding with Lion Hearts. Dan has written and presented numerous TV series including Secrets of Great British Castles, Britain's Bloodiest Dynasty: The Plantagenets and London: 2000 Years of History. He writes and hosts the Sony Music podcast This is History. He is a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society and a Trustee of Historic Royal Palaces.