| William Fowler is the author of a number of books dealing with American history including: Under Two Flags: The Navy in the Civil War; Silas Talbot Captain of the Old Ironsides; co author America and The Sea; William Ellery: A Rhode Island Politico and Lord of Admiralty; Rebels Under Sail: The Navy in the Revolution; Jack Tars and Commodores: The American Navy, 1783-1815; Samuel Adams: Radical Puritan; Empires at War: The French and Indian War and The Struggle for North America, 1754-1763.
Professor Fowler has taught courses dealing with: the History of Boston, Maritime History, and the History of New England. He is the Gay Hart Gaines Distinguished Fellow in American History at Mount Vernon. He also teaches at Mystic Seaport Museum and has lectured at the Smithsonian Institution, the United States Naval War College, and the Sea Education Association. He is a trustee of the Ralph Waldo Emerson Association, The Paul Revere Memorial Association, The Rhode Island Historical Society, and the Old North Church Foundation. He is a member of the Massachusetts State Archives Advisory Commission and an honorary member of the Boston Marine Society, as well as a Consulting Editor to The New England Quarterly.
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Empires at War: The French and Indian War and the Struggle for North America, 1754-1763
From Publishers Weekly
In this solid narrative history of a
once neglected conflict, historian Fowler, author of The Baron of
Beacon Hill: A Biography of John Adams, glances occasionally at the
European and Caribbean theaters of this "first world war," but
concentrates on the North American operations that determined Britain's
victory over France in the struggle for imperial supremacy. The
outcome, he makes clear, was a foregone conclusion given the British
colonies' vast population and economic base in comparison with French
Canada, British control of the seas, the high priority Prime Minister
William Pitt assigned to the conquest of Canada and the indifference
the people of Paris felt toward its "few acres of snow." But the French
and their Indian allies fought well under competent commanders,
administering bloody defeats to the redcoats and colonial militias
until they were swamped by superior British numbers and logistics.
Fowler's lucid account details the strategic, political and personal
dynamics behind the campaigning and conveys the color and drama of this
arduous struggle, in which the genteel etiquette of 18th-century
warfare sometimes gave way to massacre and counter-massacre and the
harsh wilderness terrain reduced combatants to starvation and
cannibalism. The result is a judicious, well-paced and engaging
introduction to a turning point in American and world history. Photos.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
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Under Two Flags: The American Navy in the Civil War
From Publishers Weekly
By the author of Jack Tars and
Commodores , this is a lively popular account of Union and Confederate
naval operations during the War Between the States. Fowler describes
how the Union blockade of Southern ports isolated the Confederacy and
the subsequent struggle for inland waterways as control of the
Mississippi became a crucial strategic factor. He reveals how
Confederate naval secretary Stephen Mallory squandered the South's
slender resources on the impractical raiding of Federal merchant
shipping on the high seas. He explains why both sides were slow to
recognize the usefulness of the ironclad warship which, with the
appearance of John Ericsson's Monitor , revolutionized naval warfare.
The narrative hangs on a series of vivid accounts of naval campaigns
and battles, including David Farragut's victories at New Orleans and
Mobile Bay and David Porter's contribution to Ulysses S. Grant's
Vicksburg campaign. Without a powerful navy, Fowler argues, the North
could not have won the war. Photos.
Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc.
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