Maximilian and Juárez recounts one of the great tragicomedies of the nineteenth century, the attempt by Napoleon III to establish Archduke Maximilian of Austria as the Emperor of Mexico.The celebrated author Jasper Ridley provides a colourful narrative of this ill-starred undertaking that pitted liberals against conservatives and the New World against the Old, ending with the execution of Maximilian, the insanity of his wife Charlotte, and the emergence of the United States as a world power.This strange episode is at once a central part of American history and a tragic tale of human ambition and cultural misunderstanding.