The Mexican Revolution, Volume 1: Porfirians, Liberals, and Peasants

The Mexican Revolution #1

by Alan Knight

The Mexican Revolution was like no it was fueled by no vanguard party, no coherent ideology, no international ambitions; and ultimately it served to reinforce rather than to subvert many of the features of the old regime it overthrew. Alan Knight argues that a populist uprising brought about the fall of longtime dictator Porfirio Díaz in 1910. It was one of those "relatively rare episodes in history when the mass of the people profoundly influenced events." In this first of two volumes Knight shows how urban liberals joined in uneasy alliance with agrarian interests to install Francisco Madero as president and how his attempts to bring constitutional democracy to Mexico were doomed by counter-revolutionary forces. The Mexican Revolution illuminates on all levels, local and national, the complex history of an era. Rejecting fashionable Marxist and revisionist interpretations, it comes as close as any work can to being definitive.

Genres: History, Nonfiction

648 pages, Paperback

First published April 30, 1986

Reviews

[Larissa · Rating 5 out of 5]

WOW...it lives up to all of the hype, and then some. It took me months to finish this book - chipping away at five pages a day here, ten pages there - in large part because there's no wasted space or padding in its 490 pages. Every sentence is in the service of some particular argument or interpretation, and each section builds on what's come before. Consequently, The Mexican Revolution is dense in the best possible way - the way that a really great chocolate cake might be. Given this conceptual and organizational richness, I was particularly impressed by the pains that Knight took to avoid jargon and set forth his ideas in clear, elegant, often very witty prose. The attention to craftsmanship is inspiring, and it's clear why this book has set the standard for studies of the Mexican Revolution during the last quarter-century.

[mauro Gracia · Rating 5 out of 5]

Uno de lo mejores libros de la revolución mexicana que he leído.

[モーリー]

I won't rate it, because while it wasn't for me, that doesn't mean it's not a quality two volumes. It was just too academic for what I wanted and assumed more knowledge of Mexico than I have.