Books like The Maharajah's box by Christopher Campbell

David Robertson’s biography of Denmark Vesey, a freed black leader who planned the largest slave rebellion in U.S. history, explores the revolt’s planning, execution, and lasting impact on African American political life.

A biographical portrait of Charlotte, Empress of Mexico, exploring her royal lineage, marriage to Maximilian, and the political upheavals that shaped her tragic destiny.

Synopsis Charles the Bold (1467-1477) was the last of the great Dukes of Burgundy. This historical and biographical work assesses his personality and his role as a ruler, and discusses his relationship with his subjects and his neighbours. It describes and analyses his policies, giving particular attention to his imperial plans and projects and his clash with the Swiss. The armies, the court and Burgundian clients and partisans are given separate treatment.

Philip, who ruled from 1419 to 1467, was one of the most powerful and influential rulers of the fifteenth century. Forced into an alliance with the English, he soon found that he held the balance of power between England and France -- reflected in the final crucial phase of the Hundred Years War. Under Philip the Good, grandson of the founder of the duchy's power, Burgundy reached its apogee. Professor Vaughan portrays not only Philip the Good himself, perhaps the most attractive personality among the four great dukes, but the workings of the court and of one of the most efficent -- if not necessarily the most popular -- administrations in fifteenth-century Europe. The complex diplomatic history of Philip the Good's long ducal reign (1419-1467) occupies much of the book, in particular Burgundy's relations with England and France. The central theme is Philip the Good's policy of territorial and personal aggrandisement, which culminated in his negotiations with the Holy Roman Emperor for a crown. And due attention is given to the great flowering of artistic life in Burgundy which made Philip's court at Dijon an important cultural centre in the period immediately preceding the Renaissance. All this is based on the close study of the considerable surviving archives of Philip's civil service, and on the chronicles and letters of the period. Philip the Good provides a definitive study of the life and times of the ruler whose position and achievements made him the greatest magnate in Europe during what has been called "the Burgundian century". - Publisher.

On the life and work of Gayatri Devi, Maharani of Jaipur, b. 1919, princess and politician.

This book illuminates the aims and personality of the second duke, and charts the development of the Burgundian state during his ducal reign (1404-1419). His supposed "infernal pact" with the English and his assassination are examined; his activities in France are studied, as he exploited French resources for the benefit of Burgundy. John the Fearless, second Duke of Burgundy, is one of the more dramatic and puzzling characters among medieval rulers. He inherited the newly created duchy from his father, and defended and developed its power ruthlessly during his ducal reign (1404-1419). In the process, he allied himself with the English party in France, with whom he was supposed to have made an "infernal pact", and came to dominate French politics; his manoeuvres led directly to his assassination on the bridge of Montereau in the presence of Charles, dauphin of France, who may have been personally involved. Indeed, the main theme of the book is John the Fearless's activities in France, which are seen in the light of the continued need to exploit French resources for the benefit of Burgundy. John also continued to build on the administrative and financial structures created by his father, which were the mainstay of the ducal power, and he had to deal with the restlessness of the Flemish towns, only recently made part of the Burgundian state. More than any other Burgundian ruler, it is John's personality which determines the course of events: violent and unscrupulous, one quality which John the Fearless completely lacked was prudence. He was a masterful opportunist, who acted impulsively with speed and decision, on the spur of the moment. In the end it was one of his own favoured weapons, political assassination, which was turned against him. - Publisher. This book, though it bears for title the name of one man, is not meant as a biography of John the Fearless. It is the second of a projected series of four volumes on thie history of Burgundy under the Valois dukes. Not that I wish to belittle the dukes themselves, as persons. Far from it. I merely seek to warn the reader that my book has no hero. Its subject is not the life of a man, but the history of the Burgundian state from 1404 to 1419, when John the Fearless was its ruler. - Introduction.

Dark Age recounts the turbulent political career of the late Jean-Bedel Bokassa, flamboyant president-for-life and later emperor of the Central African Republic/Empire. Brian Titley examines the myths and legends surrounding the man, probes their origins and veracity, and attempts to provide a more balanced perspective on this controversial and misunderstood figure. Following a lengthy career in the French army, Bokassa seized power in the Central African Republic in 1966. His excesses soon became legendary: he was accused of cannibalism, feeding enemies to lions and crocodiles, and beating schoolchildren to death. Bokassa's tendency for self-aggrandizement culminated in 1977 when he named himself emperor and orchestrated a coronation based on Napoleon's. He was overthrown by French paratroopers in 1979 and went into exile, but returned to his homeland in 1985 to face a sensational trial. Titley interprets Bokassa's authoritarian and self-aggrandizing style as an attempt to legitimize his regime in a context devoid of indigenous political structures and explores the troubled relations between France and its former colonies. Combining techniques of historical inquiry and investigative journalism, he has produced a fascinating account of a pivotal chapter in contemporary African history.