Zapata: The Ideology of a Peasant Revolutionary

by Robert P. Millon

Robert P. Millon dug deeply into the source materials in Mexico when he wrote this concise but illuminating book about the broader meaning of the movement led by Emiliano Zapata. Zapata's cry for land reform and a democratic transformation of the existing order of his time is heard anew from today's Zapatistas. Millon also discusses the conflicting interpretations of the Zapata movement, and has supplied a brief Afterword for this edition.

Millon has taught in the history departments of Louisiana State University and at Oregon State.In the mid-1970's he helped orga\nize the Vincente Lombardo Toledano papers into an archive at the Universidad Obrera de Mexico, Mexico, D.F.

164 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1969

Reviews

[Toby Mustill · Rating 2 out of 5]

A very odd history of Emiliano Zapata, the Zapatistas and the Mexican Revolution. The author claims that Zapata was a “peasant revolutionary” but then goes onto claim that the revolution itself was petit-bourgeois in nature. They then go onto claim their reasoning, but the reasoning ends up sounding proletarian in nature.

The book also talks a lot about policy and interactions between the different political factions and actors which I found took away from the overall book and story.

As a base for information about this time in history it may (may) serve as a starting point but I certainly don’t take these words as gospel and will certainly be looking for other points of view on the matter.

[Karthick · Rating 1 out of 5]

A story of a colorful personality in Mexican history is ruined by terrible writing and half-baked analysis.

[Shane Westfall · Rating 2 out of 5]

I can't recall the last time I read a book this poorly written. Many pages seemed reminiscent of the sort of exercises an English teacher would hand out to have students see how many errors they could spot. Even at his best, it read like an uninspired junior-high research paper. Did anyone bother to edit this work? I did go ahead and give it two stars because the author did do a lot of research and presented a great deal of information that I found interesting. Overall, he failed at the primary job of any writer-to convey his message to the reader. Despite being a small volume, many paragraphs have to be read multiple times to understand what the author was attempting to say. For those with a lot of interest in the subject it may be worth the read. For the casual reader, there are better ways to spend a couple hours.