Byron E. Farwell (b. 20 June 1921, Manchester, Iowa; d. 2001[?]) was an American popular military historian and biographer known for books on 19th and early 20th century British military colonialism.

He published articles in the New York Times, Washington Post, American Heritage, Harper's, Horizon, Smithsonian Magazine as well as serving as a contributing editor to Military History and World War II and as a contributor to Collier's Encyclopedia.

Biography

Farwell attended Ohio State University and the University of Chicago (M.A., 1968). He served in the military for seven years seeing action in World War II as a captain of engineers attached to the Mediterranean Allied Air Force in the British Eighth Army area. He also saw action in the Korean War.

As a civilian, he was director of public relations and later director of administration for Chrysler International (1959-71). He also served a term as mayor of Hillsboro, Virginia (1977-81).

He was a fellow of the MacDowell Colony and a member of both the Royal Geographical Society and the Royal Society of Literature.

Farwell began giving his papers to the University of Iowa Libraries in 1981.

Books

• Prisoners of the Mahdi (1967)
• Queen Victoria's Little Wars (1972)
• Mr. Kipling's Army (1981)
• Eminent Victorian Soldiers: Seekers of Glory (1985)
• The Great War in Africa (1986)
• The Great Anglo-Boer War (1990)

Farwell also published biographies of Stonewall Jackson, Henry M. Stanley, and Sir Richard Francis Burton.