The Last Prince of the Mexican Empire is a sweeping historical novel of Mexico during the short, tragic, at times surreal, reign of Emperor Maximilian and his court. Even as the American Civil War raged north of the border, a clique of Mexican conservative exiles and clergy convinced Louis Napoleon to invade Mexico and install the Archduke of Austria, Maximilian von Habsburg, as Emperor. A year later, the childless Maximilian took custody of the two...

"From one of the most perceptive observers of the English today comes a brilliantly insightful, mordantly funny account of their seemingly irrational embrace of nationalism. England's recent lurch to the right appears to be but one example of the nationalist wave sweeping across the world, yet as acclaimed Irish critic Fintan O'Toole suggests in The Politics of Pain, it is, in reality, a phenomenon rooted in World War II. We must look not to the vagaries...

"In the heart of Europe's current crisis, one of the continent's foremost statesmen urges for a radical remaking of the European Union in the model of the United States The diseases that plague Europe respect no borders. Guy Verhofstadt, former prime minister of Belgium and a leader in the European Parliament, shows that wherever we look-from the debt crisis in Greece to the rise of political Islam across Europe, the Syrian refugee crisis to Putin's...

The European Union (EU) stands out as a fascinatingly unique political organization. On the one hand, it has shown the potential for developing deep and wide-ranging cooperation between member states, going far beyond that found anywhere else in the world. On the other, it is currently in the throes of a phase of profound uncertainty about its viability and future. Showing how and why the EU has developed from 1950 to the present day, this Very Short...