21 Facts About Basil Davidson

Basil Davidson was born in Bristol, United Kingdom on 9 November 1914 and left school at 16 and moved to London.

Basil Davidson travelled widely in Italy and Central Europe in the 1930s.

Basil Davidson was recruited by the Secret Intelligence Service and MI6, D Section.

Basil Davidson parachuted into Bosnia on 16 August 1943, and spent the following months serving as a liaison with the Partisans, as he would describe in his 1946 book, Partisan Picture.

Basil Davidson moved east into Srem and the Fruska Gora in Yugoslavia.

SOE posted him to Hungarian occupied Backa to try to organize a rebel movement there, but Basil Davidson found that the conditions were unsuitable and crossed back over the Danube into the Fruska Gora.

Basil Davidson had enormous appreciation for the Partisans and the communist leader Josip Broz Tito.

From January 1945 Basil Davidson was liaison officer with partisans in Liguria and Genoa, Italy.

Basil Davidson finished the war as a lieutenant-colonel and was awarded the Military Cross and was mentioned in despatches on two occasions.

Basil Davidson was employed initially by The Times in Paris but was widely considered to have communist sympathies after his wartime role as the Cold War began.

Basil Davidson left in 1949 and became the secretary of the pressure-group, the Union of Democratic Control and began to work for the left-leaning New Statesman.

However, the Cold War prevented him from returning to Central Europe and instead Basil Davidson became interested in Africa after being invited to South Africa by trade unionists opposed to Apartheid.

Basil Davidson published several articles and books critical of white-rule in South Africa and colonial rule in Africa, passing to the Daily Herald and the Daily Mirror.

Basil Davidson published five novels and 30 other books, mainly on African history and politics.

Basil Davidson's book Lost Cities of Africa won the Anisfield-Wolf Award for best book in 1960.

From 1969, Basil Davidson was involved in the Anti-Apartheid Movement and eventually became the movement's vice-president.

Basil Davidson was a strong supporter of Pan-Africanism, especially from the 1980s, and was critical of the white-minority government in Rhodesia and of the American-backed Uniao Nacional para a Independencia Total de Angola in Angola.

Basil Davidson spent long periods in Angola and in Eritrea during its war of independence from Ethiopia.

In 1984, Basil Davidson produced an eight-part documentary series for Channel 4 entitled Africa.

Basil Davidson gained honorary degrees from universities in Europe and Africa, as well as a number of civic decorations.

Basil Davidson received honorary degrees from the Open University of Great Britain in 1980, and the University of Edinburgh in 1981.