Davies, R. W. 1925-2021

Robert William Davies (23 April 1925 – 13 April 2021), better known as R. W. Davies or Bob Davies, was a British historian, writer and professor of Soviet Economic Studies at the University of Birmingham. Obtaining his PhD in 1954, Davies was promoted to full professor and made chair of the Centre for Russian and East European Studies (CREES) at the University of Birmingham in 1965. He retired from active teaching in 1989. A collaborator and co-author with historian E. H. Carr on two volumes of his 14-volume History of Soviet Russia, Davies is best known for having carried Carr's work forward into the 1930s with seven additional volumes of economic history under the general title The Industrialisation of Soviet Russia.