This judicious history of modern Mexico's revolutionary era will help all readers, and in particular students, understand the first great social uprising of the twentieth century. In 1911, land-hungry peasants united with discontented political elites to overthrow General Porfirio Diaz, who had ruled Mexico for three decades. Gonzales offers a path-breaking overview of the revolution from its origins in the Diaz dictatorship through the presidency of radical General Lazaro Cardenas (1934-1940) drawn from archival sources and a vast secondary literature. His interpretation balances accounts of agrarian insurgencies, shifting revolutionary alliances, counterrevolutions, and foreign interventions to delineate the triumphs and failures of revolutionary leaders such as Francisco I. Madero, Pancho Villa, Emiliano Zapata, Alvaro Obregon, and Venustiano Carranza. What emerges is a clear understanding of the tangled events of the period and a fuller appreciation of the efforts of revolutionary presidents after 1916 to reinvent Mexico amid the limitations imposed by a war-torn countryside, a hostile international environment, and the resistance of the Catholic Church and large landowners.
Industry Reviews
"["The Mexican Revolution, 1910 - 1940"] will orient students to key issues, raising inevitable questions. . . . The text can organize discussions and lead students towards innovative understandings."
"Teachers of Mexican history need a readable survey of the revolutionary period's main events, actors, and themes. "The Mexican Revolution" is this text."
""The Mexican Revolution, 1910-1940" is an even-handed narrative/analysis written in a clear and concise style that both specialists and the general public can read to advantage. It is well illustrated with numerous photographs, clear and helpful maps, graphs, and chronologies. This work should serve especially well as a basic text for undergraduaute and graduate-level courses focusing on the revolution or as a complementary text in those treating the broader sweep of Mexican national history."
"?"The Mexican Revolution, 1910 - 1940"? will orient students to key issues, raising inevitable questions. . . . The text can organize discussions and lead students towards innovative understandings."
"A readable and relatively balanced overview of one of the most significant topics in Latin American studies."
"Instructors and students alike will appreciate Gonzales's thorough narrative, his choice of empirical evidence, and his agreeable prose...."
"Michael J. Gonzales' book is a useful source on the Mexican Revolution of 1910. . . . This well-researched work is recommended for the general reader and for classroom use."
"This book is a concise, chronological account of the revolutionary period in Mexico."
"This concise, clear and easily read history of Mexico's revolutionary period is likely to be welcomed by students and lay readers alike."
"[The book] will orient students to key issues, raising inevitable questions. . . the text can organize discussions and lead students towards innovative understandings."
