Authors: Frank McLynn
ISBN-13: 9780786710881, ISBN-10: 0786710888
Format: Paperback
Publisher: Basic Books
Date Published: August 2002
Edition: Reprint
Recounting the decade of bloody events that followed the eruption of the Mexican Revolution in 1910, Villa and Zapata explores the regional, international, cultural, racial, and economic strife that made the rebels Francisco (Pancho) Villa and Emiliano Zapata legends. Throughout this volume drama colludes with history, in a tale of two social outlaws who became legendary national heroes, yetdespite their triumph and only meeting, in 1914, in the Mexican capitalfailed to make common cause and ultimately fell victim to intrigues more treacherous than their own. 16 pages of black-and-white photographs bring this gripping narrative to life. McLynn ... tells it so well ... you can hear the strains of he Mexican patriotic standard Zacatecas’ as you read it.”Austin American-Statesman An admirably clear account of the chaos of revolution, its rivalries and bloody struggles....”The Spectator Informative and insightful ... feels less like a history than a great story, as exciting as a Saturday serial Western.”Publishers Weekly
The Mexican Revolution began in 1910 and lasted for over a decade, a bloody and confusing saga of betrayal, corruption, misshapen politics and mislaid trusts that, in the end, accomplished little for lower- and lower-middle class Mexicans. Historian and biographer McLynn (Carl Gustav Jung; etc.) reconstructs the revolution through the biographies of its two most important figures, Francisco (Pancho) Villa, the bandit-turned-revolutionary, and Emiliano Zapata, whose declaration, "It's better to die on our feet than to live on our knees," later became La Pasionaria's Spanish Civil War slogan. Comprehensive almost to a fault, McLynn also devotes many pages to other key players: the revolution's first leader, Francisco Madero, who, having defeated President Porfirio D!az, stopped short of killing the president and members of the fallen government; and the ambitious Pascual Orozco, a controversial revolutionary figure believed by some (his pal Villa later among them) to have been on D!az's payroll. Having moved briskly and clearly through the disorganization and obfuscation of one of the bloodiest (and longest) revolutions in history, the author makes this informative, insightful study even more compelling with his witty and fluid prose. In his exhaustive research, McLynn plumbed "the ranks of the apocrypha," compared conservative histories to liberal ones and accounted for trends (economic, cultural, agricultural, industrial) concurrent with and pertinent to the revolution. McLynn grasps so completely and communicates so deftly the nuances of government corruption, the U.S. stance toward a long succession of Mexican autocrats, infighting between Zapatistas and Villistas, that this book feelsless like a history than a great story, as exciting as a Saturday serial Western. Three maps, 16 pages b&w photos. (Sept.) Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information.
Illustrations | ||
Preface | ||
Thc Mexico of Porfirio Diaz | 1 | |
The Rise of Zapata | 33 | |
The Rise of Villa | 53 | |
The Rise of Madero | 72 | |
The Fall of Diaz | 88 | |
Madero and Zapata | 105 | |
Villa and Madero | 127 | |
The Revolt Against Huerta | 160 | |
Villa at his Zenith | 187 | |
The End of Huerta | 213 | |
The Convention of Aguascalientes | 244 | |
The Convergence of the Twain | 264 | |
Civil War | 286 | |
The Punitive Expedition | 313 | |
The Twilight of Zapatismo | 335 | |
The Decline of Villismo | 363 | |
Epilogue | 386 | |
Conclusion | 399 | |
Sources | 407 | |
Index | 441 |