James Parry

James Parry is a writer and consultant specialising in history, heritage, wildlife and the environment. Born and raised in London, he studied politics at Bristol University before training as a conservation officer with English Heritage. After two years working as the private secretary to Lord Montagu of Beaulieu, he joined the British Council and spent five years working in East Africa and the Middle East on developmental and cultural projects before returning to the UK to do an MA in Architecture. He worked first at the London Centre of Arab Studies and was then appointed by the National Trust as its academic editor, responsible for developing a specialist art and architecture publishing programme of catalogues and monographs covering the Trust’s historic properties. He subsequently worked for New Holland Books as commissioning editor before going freelance, and now writes on natural history, art, heritage and conservation for a wide range of publications. James takes a particular interest in the Islamic world, where he has travelled extensively and made particular studies of art, archaeology and architecture. He is consultant editor for the Middle Eastern art magazine Canvas, and has also written several books, including Global Safari (2007), Rainforest Safari (2008), The Desert (2011), The Mating Lives of Birds (2012) and Orientalist Lives (2018). He is currently working on a book about Emma Turner, the pioneering early 20th-century bird photographer. http://www.jamesvparry.com