The Howe Dynasty: The Untold Story of a Military Family and the Women Behind Britain's Wars for America - Hardcover

Julie Flavell

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1631490613 ISBN 13: 9781631490613

Publisher: Liveright Publishing Corporation, 2021

Synopsis

Finally revealing the family’s indefatigable women among its legendary military figures, The Howe Dynasty recasts the British side of the American Revolution.

In December 1774, Benjamin Franklin met Caroline Howe, the sister of British Admiral Richard and General William Howe, in a London drawing room for “half a dozen Games of Chess”. As Julie Flavell reveals, the games concealed a matter of the utmost diplomatic urgency, a last-ditch attempt to forestall the outbreak of war.

Aware that the Howes, both the men and the women, have seemed impenetrable to historians, Flavell investigated the letters of Caroline Howe, which have been overlooked for centuries. Using these revelatory documents, Flavell provides a compelling reinterpretation of England’s famous family across four wars, centring on their enigmatic roles in the American Revolution. The Howe Dynasty interweaves action-packed stories of North American military campaigns ― including the Battles of Bunker Hill and Long Island - with parlour-room intrigues back in England, creating a riveting narrative that brings alive the influence of these extraordinary women in both peacetime and war.

About this title

About the Author

Born in Massachusetts, Julie Flavell has pursued a lifelong interest in  Anglo-American relationships as reflected in her first book, When London Was Capital of America. A Fellow of the Royal Historical Society, Flavell lives in Britain.

From the Back Cover

"If real power is to be 'in the room where it happened, ' then the Howe family had it all and more. . . . Julie Flavell not only brings the Howes to life, she makes us love them, scold them, forgive them, and ultimately root for every member to succeed. History is rarely such fun."
--Amanda Foreman, author of Georgiana: Duchess of Devonshire

"William and Richard Howe were two of the most controversial British commanders during the American Revolution. . . . Until now, historians have been unable to recover their role in the story because their correspondence was destroyed in a nineteenth-century fire. Julie Flavell has come close to doing so by exploring the vast correspondence of their formidable sister, Caroline Howe. The result is a highly readable record from inside the Howe family of the political and military story, told from a woman's perspective."
--Joseph J. Ellis, author of American Dialogue: The Founders and Us

"Innovatively combining attention to women's drawing-room culture with military history, Julie Flavell effectively defends the Howe brothers from critics, both their own contemporaries and modern historians. Scholars of the Revolution will find this book eye-opening."
--Mary Beth Norton, author of 1774: The Long Year of Revolution

"The Howe Dynasty offers new insights into the Howe brothers, the most inscrutable of the British commanders in the American Revolutionary War. . . . This is one of the best and most compelling accounts of the role and influence of women in eighteenth-century Britain."
--Andrew Jackson O'Shaughnessy, author of The Men Who Lost America: British Leadership, the American Revolution, and the Fate of the Empire

"Completely enthralling, wonderfully well written, and like Caroline Howe herself, wise and witty in equal measures, this story of extraordinary women and stoical, driven men is a triumph and, even more important, a delight."
--Trevor Burnard, Wilberforce Professor of Slavery and Emancipation, University of Hull

Edition details

• Publisher: Liveright Publishing Corporation
• Publication date: 2021
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1631490613
• ISBN 13: 9781631490613
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 496