The Howe Dynasty: The Untold Story of a Military Family and Britain’s Wars for America

Julie Flavell ’79

The Howe Dynasty: The Untold Story of a Military Family and Britain’s Wars for America by Julie Flavell ’79 recasts the British side of the American Revolution and reveals the family’s indefatigable women among its legendary military figures.

Flavell, an American historian based in Scotland, investigated the letters of Caroline Howe, which had been overlooked since the 19th-century. Her in-depth research led her to a groundbreaking reinterpretation of one of England’s most famous military families across four wars.

A finalist for the 2022 George Washington Book Prize, The Howe Dynasty was also included as a New York Times Editor’s Choice.

Historian Joseph J. Ellis wrote that the book was a “highly readable record from inside the Howe family of the political and military story, told from a woman’s perspective.”

Flavell, he wrote, “humanizes the Howes, and along the way allows us to watch as the emerging British Empire commits the greatest blunder in the history of British statecraft.”

(Liveright, 2021)

cover of Howe Dynasty