Norwich, John Julius, 1929-2018

John Julius Cooper, 2nd Viscount Norwich, (15 September 1929 – 1 June 2018), also known as John Julius Norwich, was an English popular historian, writer of widely read travel books, and television personality. Cooper was born in London in 1929, the son of a Conservative politician and diplomat, Duff Cooper, and the actress, Diana Manners. Cooper joined the British Foreign Service in 1952, serving in Yugoslavia and Lebanon and as a member of the British delegation to the Disarmament Conference in Geneva. On his father's death in 1954, he became the second Viscount Norwich. In 1964, Cooper left the diplomatic service to become a writer. His books included histories of Sicily under the Normans (1967, 1970), Venice (1977, 1981), the Byzantine Empire (1988, 1992, 1995), the Mediterranean (2006) and the Papacy (2011). He also served as an editor of series such as Great Architecture of the World, The Italian World, The New Shell Guides to Great Britain, The Oxford Illustrated Encyclopaedia of Art and the Duff Cooper Diaries. Norwich also worked extensively in radio and television. He was the host of the BBC radio panel game My Word! for four years (1978–82) and also a regional contestant on Round Britain Quiz. He wrote and presented some 30 television documentaries, including The Fall of Constantinople, Napoleon's Hundred Days, Cortés and Montezuma, The Antiquities of Turkey, The Gates of Asia, Maximilian of Mexico, Toussaint l'Ouverture of Haiti, The Knights of Malta, Treasure Houses of Britain, and The Death of the Prince Imperial in the Zulu War.