{"product_id":"books-the-last-emperor-of-mexico-by-edward-shawcross","title":"The Last Emperor of Mexico","description":"'Hilarious, heartbreaking and utterly extraordinary.' Sunday Times 'Superbly entertaining'  Financial Times 'Baroque, page-turning and often grimly funny' Tom Holland  The bizarre and little known story of how a hubristic Archduke became the puppet Emperor of Mexico - with tragic results and pivotal historical consequences for Europe and America.  'One of the most monstrous enterprises in the annals of international history,' said Karl Marx. ' A madness without parallel since Don Quixote,' said a future French president.  This is history's judgement on the events surrounding the ill-fated reign of Maximilian of Mexico, the young Austrian archduke who in 1864 crossed the Atlantic to assume a faraway throne.   He had been convinced to do so by a duplicitous Napoleon III. Keen to spread his own interests abroad, the French emperor promised Maximilian a hero's welcome, which he would ensure with his own mighty military support. Instead, Maximilian walked into a bloody guerrilla war - and with a headful of impractical ideals and a penchant for pomp and butterflies, the so-called new emperor was singularly unequipped for the task.  The ensuing saga would feature the great world leaders of the day, popes, bandits and queens; intrigue, conspiracy and cut-throat statecraft, as Mexico became the pivotal battleground in the global balance of power, between Old Europe and the burgeoning force of the New World: American imperialism.  The Last Emperor of Mexico is the vivid history of this barely known, barely believable episode - a bloody tragedy of operatic proportions, and a vital debacle, the effects of which would be felt into the twentieth century and beyond.","brand":"World of Books ","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":53674572775697,"sku":null,"price":0.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/9780571360574.jpg?v=1781534185","url":"https:\/\/www.worldofbooks.com\/products\/books-the-last-emperor-of-mexico-by-edward-shawcross","provider":"World of Books ","version":"1.0","type":"link"}