Raymond Jonas Bücher

In 1896 a massive Ethiopian army routed an invading Italian force and brought Italy's conquest of Africa to an end. In defending its independence, Ethiopia cast doubt on the assumption that all Africans would fall under the rule of Europeans, and opened a breach that would lead to the continent's painful struggle for freedom from colonial rule.

Largely forgotten today, the Second Mexican Empire was a transformative nineteenth-century moment. Raymond Jonas explores the conspiracy of European rulers and Mexican conservatives to erect an Old World empire on New World soil. Though quixotic, it was a scheme with a purpose: to contain both Mexican democracy and the rising United States.