Dom Pedro

"Neill Macaulay has written a lively, entertaining, and instructive biography of a remarkable man, an emperor little known to English readers. The entire story is fascinating, beginning with the flight of the Portuguese ruling family from Lisbon to Rio de Janeiro in 1807, the only example of a European monarchy moving to the new world. The House of Braganca ruled over their worldwide empire from South America for twelve years. Also unique was the establishment of an enduring monarchy in the New World. It was the young Prince Pedro who declared Brazil independent, who won its almost immediate recognition from the mother country and subsequently from the major European nations. Dom Pedro and the monarchy infused into the gigantic nation of Brazil a unity and order unique in early nineteenth-century Latin America.
"Pedro's life was dramatic, and Macaulay has presented him in the rich reality of its exotic surroundings, a new monarchy in the lush tropics. the author conveys the excitement of Pedro's personality, and yet is as well balanced as a reader could hope for. Macaulay writes well, and has marshaled a wealth of facts." - E. Bradford Burns