The Last Emperor of Mexico

by Edward Shawcross

The surreal story of Ferdinand Maximilian (1832-1867), the Habsburg archduke and younger brother of Emperor Franz Josef of Austria who was executed after a brief reign as Emperor of Mexico. In addition to the inherent interest of this strange tale, the book is also a nice introduction to a period when Mexico—which had been the centre of the Spanish empire in the Americas for three centuries—became independent but also lost ground to the emerging power of the United States.