Resources

On this page you will find a range of resources relating to themes of monarchy, imperialism, colonalism and decolonisation. Where works are authored or edited by Research Hub members, their names are linked to their profile on our Members page.

This collection of resources is constantly curated. If you are aware of a resource that should be included on this page, please email Cindy McCreery.

Recent Books on the history of modern monarchy (published since 2020)

• Aali, Heta.  French Royal Women during the Restoration and July Monarchy: Redefining Women and Power (Palgrave, 2021).
• Aldrich, Richard J. and Rory Cormac.  The Secret Royals:  Spying and the Crown, from Victoria to Diana (Atlantic, 2021).
• Aldrich, Robert and Cindy McCreery (eds), Monarchies and Decolonisation in Asia (Manchester UP, 2020).
• Ali, Omar, et. al. African Rulers and Generals in India (n.p., 2021).
• Altman, Dennis.  God Save the Queen: The Strange Persistence of Monarchies (Scribe Publications, 2021).
• Amos, Timothy and Ishii, Akiko (eds.), Revisiting Japan’s Restoration: New Approaches to the Study of the Meiji Transformation, (Routledge, 2022). includes chapters by THREE Research Hub members: Lionel Babicz, John Breen and Donna Brunero.
• Atwal, Priya.  Royals and Rebels: The Rise and Fall of the Sikh Empire (Hurst and OUP, 2020).
• Baer, Marc David.  The Ottomans: Khans, Caesars and Caliphs (Basic Books, 2021).
• Bakhash, Shaul.  The Fall of reza Shah: The Abdication, Exile and Death of Modern Iran’s Founder (Bloomsbury, 2022).
• Balasubramanian, Uma.  Sayajirao Gaekwad III: The Maharaja of Baroda (Rupa Publications, 2019).
• Barich, Daniel.  Learning to Rule: Court Education and the Remaking of the Qing State, 1861-1912 (Columbia UP, 2022).
• Bloks, Moniek.  Hermine – An Empress in Exile: The Untold Story of the Kaiser’s Second Wife (Chronos, 2020).
• Borman, Tracy.  Crown & Sceptre: A New History of the British Monarchy from William the Conqueror to Elizabeth II (Hooder & Stoughton, 2021).
• Boudon, Jacques-Olivier.  Les quatre sergents de La Rochelle: le dernier crime de la monarchie (Passés composés, 2021).
• Castro-Woodhouse, Leslie.  Woman between Two Kingdoms: Dara Rasami and the Making of Modern Thailand (Cornell, 2021).
• Chachavalpongpun, Pavin.  Love and Death of King Ananda Mahidol of Thailand (Palgrave Macmillan, 2021).
• Chakrabongse, Narisa (ed.).  Turbulent Times: The Diaries of Prince Chakrabongse, 1916-1920 (River Books, 2023).
• Clancy, Laura, Running the Family Firm: How the Monarchy Manages Its Image and Our Money (Manchester UP, 2021).
• Cooper, Andrew Scott.  The Five Crowns: Royals in War and Revolution from Athens to Tehran (Public Affairs, 2023).
• Dauga, Pierre.  Charles X: Le Naufrage de la monarchie française (Édiitions de l’Ouest, 2020).
• Davidson, Christopher M. From Sheiks to Sultanism: Statecraft and Authority in Saudi Arabia and the UAE (Hurst, 2022).
• Decharneux, Baudouin and Alice Toma, Royauté(s): Entre historicité et imaginaire (EME, 2021).
• Dedieu, Jean-Pierre.  Après le roi: essai sur l’effondrement de la monarchie espagnole (Casa de Velázquez, 2021).
• De Meyer, Marleen and Sibille de Cartier d’Yves (eds), Belgians on the Nile: A history of royal Visits, Entrepreneurship and Archaeological Exploration in Egypt. (Bibliotheca Alexandrina, 2020).
• Domeier, Norman and Mühling, Christian (eds), Homosexualität am Hof: Pratiken und Diskurse von Mittelalter bis Heute (Campus, 2020).
• Fitzmaurice, Andrew.  King Leopold’s Ghostwriter: The Creation of Persons and States in the Nineteenth Century (Princeton UP, 2021).
• Fitzpatrick, Matthew P.  The Kaiser and the Colonies: Monarchy in the Age of Empire (OUP. 2022).
• Flexner, James, Oceania, 800-1800CE: A Millennium of Interactions in a Sea of Islands (Cambridge University Press, 2021)
• Franconie, Grégoire.  Le Lys et la cocarde: royauté et nation à l’âge romantique (1830-1848) (PUF, 2021).
• Ganjanakhundee, Supalak.  A Soldier Koing: Monarchy and Military in the Thailand of Rama X (ISEAS, 2022).
• Gibney, John.  Ireland and the Monarchy (Pen and the Sword, 2020).
• Goldstone, Nancy.  In the Shadow of the Empress: The Defiant Lives of Maria Theresa, Mother of Marie-Antoinette and Her Daughters (Little Brown, 2021).
• Hazell, Robert and Bob Morris (eds).  The Role of Monarchy in Modern Democracy: European Monarchies Compared (Hart, 2022).
• Heath, Sean.  Sacral Kingship in Bourbon France: The Cult of Saint Louis, 1589-1830 (Bloomsbury, 2022).
• Hocking, Jenny.  The Palace Letters: The Queen, the Governor-General, and the Plot to Dismiss Gough Whitlam (Scribe, 2020).
• Innes, Lyn.  The Last Prince of Bengal: A Family’s Journey from an Indian Palace to the Australian Outback (Westbourne Press, 2021).
• Jackson, D. Michael and Christopher McCreery, A Resilient Crown: Canada’s Monarchy at the Platinum Jubilee (Dundurn Press, 2022).
• Jones, Heather.  For King and Country: The British Monarchy and the First World War (Cambridge UP, 2021).
• Jordan, Christina and Imke Polland (eds). Realms of Royalty: New Directions in Researching Contemporary European Monarchies (Transcript Verlag, 2020).
• Kamrava, Mehra.  A Dynastic History of Iran: From the Qajars to the Pahlavis (CUP, 2022).
• Koch, Jeroen, Dik van der Meulen and Jeroen van Zanten.  The House of Orange in Revolution and War: A European History, 1772-1890 (Reaktion Books, 2022).
• Kruger, Rayne.  The Devil’s Discus: The Death of Ananda, King of Siam (DMP Publications, 2021).
• Köhler, Thomas Walter, Christian Mertens, et. al.  Ultimo: Österreichs letzter Kaiser im Übergang von der Monarchie zur Republik (Braumüller, 2022).
• Lamotte, Stéphane.  The Worlds of a Prince: Albert 1^st of Monaco (Harry N. Abrams, 2022).
• Landy, Simon.  The King and the Consul: A Tragedy of Old Siam (River Books, 2022).
• Legoy, Corinne and Olivier Tort (eds), Monarchies censitaires (Presses universitaires de Rennes, 2020).
• Lieven, Dominic.  In the Shadow of the Gods: The Emperor in World History (Viking, 2022).
• Lloyd, Abbas.  Bahalwapur: The Kingdom that Vanished (Vintage Books, 2020).
• Low, Valentine.  Courtiers: The Hidden Power Behind the Crown (Headline, 2022).
• Marchi, Maria Christina.  The Heirs to the Savoia Throne and the Construction of ‘Italianità’, 1860-1900 (Palgrave Macmillan, 2022).
• Martin, Russell E.  The Tsar’s Happy Occasion: Ritual and Dynasty in the Weddings of Russia’s Rulers, 1495-1745 (Cornell UP, 2021).
• Mérieau, Eugénie.  Constitutional Bricolage: Thailand’s Sacred Monarchy vs the Rule of Law (Hart, 2021).
• Michelet, Maxime.  L’Impératrice Eugénie – une vie politique (Éditions du Cerf, 2020)
• Müller, Frank Lorenz and Heidi Mehrkens (eds), Royal Heirs and the Uses of Soft Power in Nineteenth-Century Europe (Palgrave, 2020).
• Ochonu, Moses E.  Emirs in London: Subaltern Travel and Nigeria’s Modernity (Indiana University Press, 2022).
• Olechnowicz, A.J. Monarchy, Magic and Democracy: The Royal Family and Modern Britain (Continuum, 2022).
• Palmer, Dean.  Tea with Hitler: The Secret History of the Royal Family and the Third Reich (History Press, 2021).
• Peat, Rachel (ed.).  Japan: Courts and Culture (Royal Collections Trust, 2020)
• Persson, Fabian.  Survival and Revival in Sweden’s Court and Monarchy, 1718-1930 (Palgrave, 2020).
• Pillai, Manu S. False Allies: India’s Maharajahs in the Age of Ravi Varma (Juggernaut, 2021).
• Protschky, Susie.  Photographic Subjects: Monarchy and Visual Culture in Colonial Indonesia (Manchester UP, 2021).
• Rappaport, Helen.  After the Romanovs: Russian Exiles in Paris from the Belle Epoque through Revolution and War (Macmillan, 2022).
• Ridley, Jane.  George V: Never a Dull Moment (Chatto & Windus, 2021).
• Roberts, Andrew.  George III: The Life and Reign of Britain’s Most Misunderstood Monarch (Penguin, 2021).
• Rulof, Bernard.  Popular Legitimism and the Monarchy in France: Mass Politics without Parties, 1830-1880 (Palgrave, 2020).
• San Narciso, David, Margarita Barral Martínez and Carolina Armenteros, Monarchy and Liberalism in Spain: The Building of the Nation State, 1780-1931 (Routledge, 2020).
• Schley, Daniel F. (ed.), Japans modern Monarchie: Beiträge japanologischer Forschung zur Wahrnehmung und Geschichte der Tenno (LIT Verlag, 2022)
• Shakibi, Zhand.  Pahlavi Iran and the Politics of Occidentalism: The Shah and the Rastakhiz Party (I.B. Tauris, 2021).
• Shawcross, Edward.  The Last King of Mexico: The Dramatic Story of the Habsburg Archduke Who Created a Kingdom in the New World (Basic Books, 2021).
• Sheikh, Mohamed.  Emperor of the Five Rivers: the Life and Times of Maharajah Ranjit Singh (Bloomsbury, 2021).
• Simon II of Bulgaria.  A Unique Destiny: The Memoirs of the Last Tsar of Bulgaria, from Monarchy to Democracy (Stackpole, 2021).
• Smith, David E. Smith, Christopher McCreery and Jonathan Shanks (eds), Canada’s Deep Crown: Beyond Elizabeth II, the Crowns’ Continuing Canadian Complexion (University of Toronto, 2022).
• Solnon, Jean-François.  Le Goût des rois (Perrin, 2020).
• Spangler, Jonathan.  Monsieur: Second Sons in the Monarchy of France, 1550-1800 (Routledge, 2021).
• Takeyh, Ray.  The Last Shah: America, Iran and the Fall of the Pahlevi Dynasty (Yale UP, 2022).
• Turner, Barry.  Thorns in the Crown: The Story of the Coronation and what it meant for Britain (The History Press, 2022).
• Unchanam, Puangchon.  Royal Capitalism: Wealth, Class, and Monarchy in Thailand (Wisconsin, 2022).
• Van Gelder, Klaas. (ed.).  More than Mere Spectacle: Coronations and Inaugurations in the Habsburg Monarchy during the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Century (Berghahn, 2021).
• De Vienne, Marie-Sybille.  Thailand’s Buddhist Kingship in the 20^th and 21^st Centuries: Power, Influence and Rites (Routledge, 2022).
• Watanabe-O’Kelly, Helen.  Projecting Imperial Power: New Nineteenth-Century Emperors and the Public Sphere (OUP, 2021).
• Woodacre, Elena, et. al. (eds), The Routledge History of Monarchy (Routledge, 2021).
• Zubrzycki, John.  The House of Jaipur: The Inside Story of India’s Most Glamorous Royal Family (Juggernaut, 2020).