Edward Shawcross

The Last Emperor of Mexico tells the story of how Ferdinand Maximilian, a Habsburg archduke, once ruled Mexico in the mid-nineteenth century.

‘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 Ferdinand Maximilian, the young archduke who in 1864 crossed the Atlantic to assume a faraway throne. 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. Available from Faber & Faber in the UK and Basic Books in the US