Description: In 1807, to escape an 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 seat of European imperial power surrounded by the jungle. With the center of the Portuguese world in the New World for the next thirteen years, an extraordinary inversion of political, economic, and cultural hierarchies that had governed colonial relations for centuries came to pass. Tropical Versailles tells the fascinating story of the only European empire to relocate its capital to the New World. The author elucidates the key roles that slavery played in how the transplanted Portuguese court perceived Brazil and how in return Brazilians felt about the court, ultimately drawing the conclusion that a 19th Century European monarchy and a slave society could not co-exist. Schultz's penetrating study provides an engaging look at an utterly unique and riveting historical episode.

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