by Julie Flavell ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 20, 2021
An intelligent, sympathetic portrait that challenges popular views of the Howe family.
Historian Flavell reappraises the careers of two maligned British commanders in the Revolutionary War and shows how female relatives tried to burnish the men’s reputations.
In “the first whole-family history of the Howes,” the author focuses on the brothers Gen. William Howe, Richard Admiral Lord Howe, and, to a lesser degree, Brig. Gen. George Howe, who was killed near Fort Ticonderoga in the Seven Years’ War. With 10 offspring, the Howes’ aristocratic parents favored “the rather heartless tradition of recycling the dynastic names of dead children.” The early chapters move slowly as Flavell introduces generations of Georges and Sophias and Charlottes and remote events such as the War of Jenkins’ Ear. After 100 or so pages, as the Revolutionary War nears, the narrative gains—and retains—a momentum that effectively turns a group biography into a swiftly paced history of the war and its aftermath, when the public vilified William and Richard for their strategic missteps but later restored them to high esteem. Flavell balances accounts of battles in America with tales of how well-connected Howe women in England tried to advance the brothers’ careers in the press and elsewhere. In 1774, their sister made a noteworthy effort when she tried—over games of chess with Benjamin Franklin—to help Richard find a peaceful alternative to the looming war. Throughout, the author rebuts—sometimes convincingly—common views of the Howes, including that as commander of the British land forces in America, William showed “at the least profound character and professional flaws and, at worst, a conspiratorial ambition to promote the Howes and their quest to save the empire.” Flavell also labels as “probably not true” the rumors that William had a distracting affair with Elizabeth Lloyd Loring. The author offers much for historians to argue about and plenty for patient readers to enjoy.
An intelligent, sympathetic portrait that challenges popular views of the Howe family.Pub Date: July 20, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-63149-061-3
Page Count: 496
Publisher: Liveright/Norton
Review Posted Online: May 3, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2021
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by David Gibbins ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 2, 2024
Gibbins combines historical knowledge with a sense of adventure, making this book a highly enjoyable package.
A popular novelist turns his hand to historical writing, focusing on what shipwrecks can tell us.
There’s something inherently romantic about shipwrecks: the mystery, the drama of disaster, the prospect of lost treasure. Gibbins, who’s found acclaim as an author of historical fiction, has long been fascinated with them, and his expertise in both archaeology and diving provides a tone of solid authority to his latest book. The author has personally dived on more than half the wrecks discussed in the book; for the other cases, he draws on historical records and accounts. “Wrecks offer special access to history at all…levels,” he writes. “Unlike many archaeological sites, a wreck represents a single event in which most of the objects were in use at that time and can often be closely dated. What might seem hazy in other evidence can be sharply defined, pointing the way to fresh insights.” Gibbins covers a wide variety of cases, including wrecks dating from classical times; a ship torpedoed during World War II; a Viking longship; a ship of Arab origin that foundered in Indonesian waters in the ninth century; the Mary Rose, the flagship of the navy of Henry VIII; and an Arctic exploring vessel, the Terror (for more on that ship, read Paul Watson’s Ice Ghost). Underwater excavation often produces valuable artifacts, but Gibbins is equally interested in the material that reveals the society of the time. He does an excellent job of placing each wreck within a broader context, as well as examining the human elements of the story. The result is a book that will appeal to readers with an interest in maritime history and who would enjoy a different, and enlightening, perspective.
Gibbins combines historical knowledge with a sense of adventure, making this book a highly enjoyable package.Pub Date: April 2, 2024
ISBN: 9781250325372
Page Count: 304
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Nov. 28, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2024
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by Tom Clavin ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 21, 2020
Buffs of the Old West will enjoy Clavin’s careful research and vivid writing.
Rootin’-tootin’ history of the dry-gulchers, horn-swogglers, and outright killers who populated the Wild West’s wildest city in the late 19th century.
The stories of Wyatt Earp and company, the shootout at the O.K. Corral, and Geronimo and the Apache Wars are all well known. Clavin, who has written books on Dodge City and Wild Bill Hickok, delivers a solid narrative that usefully links significant events—making allies of white enemies, for instance, in facing down the Apache threat, rustling from Mexico, and other ethnically charged circumstances. The author is a touch revisionist, in the modern fashion, in noting that the Earps and Clantons weren’t as bloodthirsty as popular culture has made them out to be. For example, Wyatt and Bat Masterson “took the ‘peace’ in peace officer literally and knew that the way to tame the notorious town was not to outkill the bad guys but to intimidate them, sometimes with the help of a gun barrel to the skull.” Indeed, while some of the Clantons and some of the Earps died violently, most—Wyatt, Bat, Doc Holliday—died of cancer and other ailments, if only a few of old age. Clavin complicates the story by reminding readers that the Earps weren’t really the law in Tombstone and sometimes fell on the other side of the line and that the ordinary citizens of Tombstone and other famed Western venues valued order and peace and weren’t particularly keen on gunfighters and their mischief. Still, updating the old notion that the Earp myth is the American Iliad, the author is at his best when he delineates those fraught spasms of violence. “It is never a good sign for law-abiding citizens,” he writes at one high point, “to see Johnny Ringo rush into town, both him and his horse all in a lather.” Indeed not, even if Ringo wound up killing himself and law-abiding Tombstone faded into obscurity when the silver played out.
Buffs of the Old West will enjoy Clavin’s careful research and vivid writing.Pub Date: April 21, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-250-21458-4
Page Count: 400
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Jan. 19, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2020
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