History, Memory, and the Human Thread
I’m John Rees, and I write historical fiction and essays exploring memory, motive, and the tension between power and truth.
My novels weave real people and events with imagined lives, exploring not just what happened, but what it may have felt like to experience it. My essays draw on history, philosophy, politics, and culture, reflecting on how ideas formed long ago continue to shape the present.
At the heart of both is what I call The Human Thread — the connections that carry memory and experience across time, reminding us how lives once lived still echo in the world we inhabit today.
Set against the bleak industrial landscape of Dowlais, this is a story of resilience and triumph. Orphaned and sent to London as a scullery maid, Eliza Turner’s art becomes her means of survival — and a voice for social reform.
Christmas, 1896. At Dolwyddelan Castle in North Wales, a medieval codex challenges the accepted history between Wales and England and draws Professor Owain Morgan into his first case — one where truth hides not in evidence, but in motive, silence, and fear.
Is History Ever Objective?
What does it mean to say history is objective? E. H. Carr posed the question in 1961. It remains unsettled.
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From the Journal
Alongside fiction, I write essays on history, psychology, and power.
Big Ideas that Shape Our Thinking
A series on philosophy and the thinkers who shaped how we understand reason, belief, and what it means to be human, so relevant today.
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Democracy for Sale
The growing unease about the stability of Western democracies and how money and digital amplification influences voters.
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