Caught up in the personal and political maelstrom between his domineering grandmother Catherine the Great and his highly neurotic and volatile father, Paul I, Alexander came to the throne as a result of a coup mounted against his father in March 1801. Alexander was devastated when the takeover turned violent and his father was assassinated.".

"Imperial Masquerade: The Legend of Princess Der Ling, the first biography of one of the twentieth century's most intriguing cross-cultural personalities, traces not only the life of Princess Der Ling, in all its various transformations, but offers a fresh look at the woman she lionized and, ultimately, betrayed - the Empress Dowager Cixi, to whom, like Der Ling, many legends have been affixed over the past century. The book also depicts the changing worlds of Paris, Tokyo and the other international stages of Der Ling's development as woman and as mystery, and deals with the many teachers who made her who she was." --Book Jacket.

Volumes 1 & 2 all in one book! As one makes changes to learn who they are, they learns to adapt to new situations and discover who they were meant to be. The journey is never easy but discovering oneself created a new found freedom that allows boundaries that prohibited growth to be shattered. This is a story of a girl who is given a chance to write her own destiny and immerse herself in a world that will bring out the true person that had been locked away by fear. With the world on the verge of an epic war, courage will be tested as trust is instill in a girl as she rises to her full potential. As Kariya discovers who she was meant to be challenges will appear as riddles are solved break the chains of a past that has hindered her in the past.

Every legend has a side of it that goes untold just as we have a side of our lives that goes unseen. With countries fighting for power amongst themselves, the lands within are ravaged with turn oil and chaos. The people of the Suguremashita Region keep their hope in a legend that has yet to be proven to be true. When reality collides with fantasy, lives are taken so lives can be saved. When a young priestess is hidden in a parallel dimension where time passes slower to save her life she must return when called upon. In an unexpected moment a young girl gets thrusted from one world and into another to be transformed into the priestess she was destined to become. As one makes changes to learn who they are, they learns to adapt to new situations and discover who they were meant to be. The journey is never easy but discovering oneself created a new found freedom that allows boundaries that prohibited growth to be shattered. This is a story of a girl who is given a chance to write her own destiny and immerse herself in a world that will bring out the true person that had been locked away by fear.

The first in-depth analysis of some of the most important epic poems of the Spanish Golden Age, Myth and Identity in the Epic of Imperial Spain breathes new life into five of these long- neglected texts. Elizabeth Davis demonstrates that the epic must not be overlooked, for doing so creates a significant gap in one's ability to appraise not only the cultural practice of the imperial age, but also the purest expression of its ideology. Davis's study focuses on heroic poetry written from 1569 to 1611, including Alonso de Ercilla's La Araucana, undeniably the most significant epic poem of its time. Also included are Diego de Hojeda's La Christiada, Juan Rufo's La Austriada, . Lope de Vega's Jerusalén Conquistada, and Cristóbal de Virués's Historia del Monserrate. Examining these epics as the major site for the construction of cultural identities and Renaissance nationalist myths, Davis analyzes the means by which the epic constructs a Spanish sense of self. Because this sense of identity is not easily susceptible to direct representation, it is often derived in opposition to an "other," which serves to reaffirm Spanish cultural superiority. The Spanish Christian caballeros are almost always pitted against Amerindians, Muslims, Jews, or other adversaries portrayed as backward or heathen for their cultural and ethnic differences. The pro-Castilian elite of sixteenth-century Spain faced the daunting task of constructing unity at home in the process of expansion and conquest abroad, yet ethnic and regional differences in the Iberian Peninsula made the creation of an imperial identity particularly difficult. The epic, as Davis shows, strains to convey the overriding image of a Spain that appears more unified than the Spanish empire ever truly was. An important reexamination of the Golden Age canon, Myth and Identity in the Epic of Imperial Spain brings a new twist to the study of canon formation. While Davis does not ignore more traditional approaches to the literary text, she does apply recent theories, such as deconstruction and feminist criticism, to these poems, resulting in an innovative examination of the material. Confronting such issues as canonicity, gender, the relationship between literature and Golden Age culture, and that between art and power, this publication offers scholars a new perspective for assessing Golden Age and Transatlantic studies

Eighteenth-century drama is often dismissed as homogenous, aesthetically uninteresting, or politically complacent. This book reveals the incredibly intriguing and intricate nature of the period's history plays and their often messy dramatisaton of the complexities of patriotic rhetoric and national identification.

A ground-breaking work that considers myths of the Spanish empire from the perspective of cultural responses to its demise.