John Stanley Melville Keay FRGS (born 1941) is a British historian, journalist, radio presenter and lecturer specialising in popular histories of India, the Far East and China, often with a particular focus on their colonisation and exploration by Europeans.
His father Stanley Walter Keay (1902–72) was a master mariner and his mother Florence Jessie née Keeping (1905–92) was a housewife.
Keay followed it with two volumes about the European exploration of the Western Himalayas in the 19th century: When Men and Mountains Meet (1977) and The Gilgit Game (1979).
During this time he wrote India Discovered, the story of how British colonialists came to find out about the great artefacts of Indian culture and architecture.
John Keay's major books have all received strong positive reviews in leading publications in the UK, US, Asia and elsewhere.
The professional recognition he has received has included the following:[7] His late first wife Julia Keay, née Atkins (1946–2011), was also a successful writer and historian.