Edward VIII: An American Life
by Ted Powell

King Edward VIII is the only British King in history to have voluntarily abdicated. His refusal to give up his scandalous affair with married Wallis Simpson triggered a constitutional crisis that shook the monarchy and carved a bitter and excruciatingly public rift in the world’s most famous family.

But what if the abdication of King Edward VIII had deeper roots than his affair with Wallis, originating with a young prince’s fascination with the USA? In his new book, King Edward VIII: An American Life, esteemed royal historian Ted Powell challenges us to turn our view of King Edward VIII and his abdication on its head.

Powell reveals the prince’s first love: America. He argues that the irresistible freedom and modernity Edward tasted there shaped his intimate relationships and transformed his view of monarchy – setting him on a dangerous collision course with his rigid life of pomp and pageantry as King-in-waiting in interwar Britain. This laid the foundations for the explosive events to come.

As controversial in death as in life, Edward is branded a Nazi sympathiser and embarrassment to the Royal Family. But Powell argues that Edward was a peace-loving man and a progressive prince, who, if he’d remained king, was set to modernise the monarchy beyond anything we’ve seen from a reigning monarch in the 80 years since his abdication.

King Edward VIII is a rip-roaring ride from surfing trips, to cowboy ranches, to all-night jazz parties and strings of clandestine affairs – but it is also a fundamental reassessment of the role America played in the abdication of Edward VIII.