Tropical Versailles

ISBN: 9780415929882

出版年: 2001-9

页数: 338

定价: 244.00元

内容简介

In 1807, to escape and invading Napoleonic army, the Portuguese Prince Regent and some 10,000 functionaries set sail for Brazil. Following the transfer of the court, Rio de Janeiro became a "tropical Versailles," a new world seat of European imperial power. In discourse and practice, residents and royal officials in Rio set out to transform a colonial capital into a royal court and to redefine the bases for the political legitimacy of an empire and monarchy centered in America. With the capital of the Portuguese empire in Brazil for the next thirteen years, an extraordinary inversion of political, economic, and cultural hierarchies that had governed colonial relations for centuries came to pass. Schultz's penetrating study provides an engaging look at a unique and riveting historical episode.