The Mexican Revolution: A Brief History with Documents

by Mark Wasserman

Focused on the causes, conduct, and consequences of the revolution which ended General Porfirio Diaz's thirty-five year rule as dictator-president, Mexican Revolution explores the unique combination of alliances of the participants that led to the revolution along with the result -- radical new constitution that demanded education for all children, redistributed land and water resources, and established progressive labor laws.

Genres: History

192 pages, Paperback

First published February 24, 2012

Reviews

[Maria Shade · Rating 4 out of 5]

read it for school, big appreciation for the chronology of the Mexican Revolution

[John Newton · Rating 3 out of 5]

The introduction of the book is good and I would recommend this book more for the first 27 pages than for the documents that follow. The Mexican Revolution is somewhat more complicated than some others as there aren't simply two sides fighting to a conclusion. Instead, in brief, the dictator Diaz was replaced by Madero in the first, successful phase of the Revolution. Then Madero was replaced by the reactionary Huerta, and then the revolution split into two camps, the Constitutionalists and the Conventionalists. The former was led by Carranza and Obregón, the latter by Villa and Zapata. In the end, the Constitutionalists triumphed over the more leftist Conventionalists. By some measures, the revolution didn't end until 1940, with the end of the Cárdenas presidency, when he fulfilled many of the revolution's promises.

For readers who want a broad overview of how the revolution unfolded, and perhaps know nothing more than the names of Pancho Villa and Emiliano Zapata, the introduction is helpful.

The documents that follow, however, struck me as an odd selection. John Reed is represented by multiple entries; the Mexican-American actor Anthony Quinn has an entry which struck me as more about introducing a familiar name than including a source that is truly important in understanding the period. Long excerpts from the Mexican Constitution aren't helpful to readers who lack much of the context to understand which passages are especially significant. I still need to find a more detailed history of the revolution as this wasn't that helpful in the end.

[Todd Stansbury · Rating 5 out of 5]

This makes for a very interesting read, because it does more than just collect a series of papers or photos, the author introduces each document and collects them into a series of groupings that he believes they belong to. The introduction offers us what the author sees as the four causes of the revolution; a helpful summary that still might be too simplistic except for people just delving into the opening study of foreign affairs. The introduction also explains the fallout of the revolution and a brief summary of the events that surrounded the revolution.

The real reward of the book comes with the documents. Ranging from fiction works to interviews, pictures, and one infamous telegram, it shows some of the forces behind the Mexican revolution. The author points out that it is hard to know what the regular soldiers were thinking as even the ones that might be literate, and there were not many of them, would not have had time to write down what was going on. The majority of the memoirs come from commanders, or the people who were leading the revolution. In one memorable case, the memoir was written by a former member of the Profirian regime, which shows an amazing attempt by someone to paint himself s as the only innocent in a universe of corruption.

One of the best features, aside from the pictures is the personal narratives of the soldiers, their wives, and even the common people who were just trying to get by in a world that was constantly changing around them. The international effects of the revolution introduced the Zimmerman telegraph and also allow us to get in touch with our good friend Balfour who will go on shortly to cause a whole host of problems that lead almost directly to the Holocaust.

The greatest fault of the work is that it presents itself as a neutral text. The reader is given documents and therefore they must be neutral because they are just history. A reader must caution themselves that even the documents had to be chosen, and edited, and grouped as they were. The author wants you to believe his version of events, and that must always be understood no matter what the source.