Overview

The nineteenth century is notable for its newly proclaimed emperors, from Franz I of Austria and Napoleon I in 1804 through Agustin and Pedro, the emperors of Mexico and Brazil in 1822 to Victoria, empress of India in 1876. Monarchs such as Napoleon III, Maximilian of Mexico, and Wilhelm I projected an imperial aura with coronations, courts, medals, costumes, portraits, monuments, international exhibitions, festivals, architecture, and town planning. They relied on ancient history for legitimacy whilst partially espousing modernity. Projecting Imperial Power is the first book to consider newly proclaimed emperors in six territories across three continents across the whole range of the nineteenth century.The first emperors' successors - Pedro II of Brazil, Franz Joseph of Austria, and Wilhelm II of Germany - expanded their panoply of power, until Pedro was forced to abdicate in 1889 and World War I brought the Austrian and German empires to an end. Britain invented an imperial myth for its Indian empire in the 20th century, until George VI relinquished the title of emperor in 1947. The imperial cities of Berlin, Paris, Vienna, and New Delhi bear witness to vanished empires.Using a wide range of source Projecting Imperial Power explains the imperial ambition behind these imperial cities. It discusses how the empires and their rulers are remembered today by examining how the imperial statues that were erected in huge numbers in the second part of the period are treated today, and how this demonstrates the contested place of emperors in national cultural memory.

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9780198802471

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Helen Watanabe-O'Kelly is a Professor of German Literature at the University of Oxford and an Emeritus Fellow at Exeter College. She is the editor of The Cambridge History of German Literature (Cambridge University Press, 1997) and Queens Consort, Cultural Transfer and European Politics, c. 1500-1800 (Routledge, 2016), and author of Beauty or Beast? The Woman Warrior in the German Imagination from the Renaissance to the Present (Oxford University Press, 2010).

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