The Eagle's Throne

Carlos Fuentes, author of more than 20 books (including The Old Gringo and The Death of Artemio Cruz), knows politics intimately: he served in various government positions in Mexico and as Mexico's ambassador to France in the mid-1970s. The Eagle's Throne, a brilliantly scathing satire on presidential succession, is among Fuentes's best work. Inspired by Machiavelli's The Prince and other texts, Fuentes personalizes power plays through letters in which characters scheme, betray, plot murders, reveal their sexual peccadilloes, and succumb to desperation.

The latest in the extensive Bloom's Modern Critical Interpretations series, Carlos Fuentes' The Death of Artemio Cruz is an anthology of essays by learned scholars discussing the finer points of the novel "The Death of Artemio Cruz" (1962) by contemporary Mexican author Carlos Fuentes. This novel about the legacy of the Mexican Revolution, as told from the perspective of Artemio Cruz on his deathbed, expresses a core search for Mexican identity in the wake of promises, failures, and hopes following the Revolution.