Product Description

The Mexican Revolution (1910-19) was the first seismic social convulsion of the twentieth century, superseded in historical importance only by the Russian and Chinese revolutions. Tierra y Libertad (land and liberty) was the watchword of the revolutionaries who fought a succession of autocrats in Mexico City. But the revolution was fired by a confusing multiplicity of issues: local, national, international, cultural, racial and economic. The two greatest rebel leaders were Francisco (Pancho) Villa and Emiliano Zapata, and Frank McLynn here tells the story of the Revolution through a dual biography of these legendary heroes. The great ten-year struggle that devastated Mexico was essentially a war on two fronts: in the north waged by Villa and a mobile army of excowboys and ranchers; and in the south carried on by Zapata and an infantry army recruited from the peons of the sugar plantations. Villa was the Revolution's great military hero, but Zapata was its soul and the only rebel whose revolt was aimed at a genuine root-and-branch transformation of Mexican society. The two men reached the peak of their careers in 1914 when they met briefly in triumph in Mexico City. Failing to make common cause, over the next five years they gradually fell victim to their great rivals. Mixed up in the turbulent melting pot of revolution were the US government, American oil interests and German secret agents, and among the dramatic events McLynn discusses are Villa's raid on Columbus, Pershing's punitive expedition south of the border and the Zimmermann telegraph.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #334822 in Books
• Published on: 2001-10
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 474 pages

Amazon.co.uk Review
Eric Hobsbawm once pointed out that peasants and bandits make as effective revolutionaries as intellectuals and lawyers. Frank McLynn's epic narrative of the Mexican revolution certainly proves the point. This dual biography of Pancho Villa--the feisty cowboy from the north and Emiliano Zapata, the dour peasant leader from the south--shows how both men held the balance of power at key stages of the struggle between the remnants of the Diaz regime and the new contenders for the presidency. At times there are too many characters in this tale--American film-crews, German spies, one-armed generals and countless conspirators--and too much information for the reader to digest. But generally the history comes alive. There is horror--murder, pillage and destruction on virtually every page--but glimpses of humanity too, as the simple demands for land reform were repeated time and again. Whether the Mexican revolution is as significant an event as the Russian or the Chinese is a moot point. The author shows that little changed in the country after 1919, and had real upheaval been threatened, the US army would surely have moved in. But Villa and Zapata were truly popular heroes, not invented cult-figures like Lenin and Mao. --Miles Taylor

Review
It is a measure of the extent to which we are spellbound by simple men who achieve mythical status by fighting injustice that fascination with Mexico's Revolution of 1910 persists to this day. The versatile McLynn's latest contribution to the historical industry that has developed around Mexico's Revolution (1910 - 1919) prompts us to ask why it continues to exercise such a singular grip on the imagination. The answer lies somehere within the quandary exposed by the Mexican insurgency: how to bring social justice to the poor and weak while guaranteeing the freedoms necessary to generate prosperity. It was for their response to this that McLynn examines in a joint biography the Mexican Revolution's most celebrated leaders, Emiliano Zapata and Pancho Villa, who led their ragtag armies from provincial obscurity into the history books. McLynn is right in saying that they were the popular social spirit of the Revolution, its icons immortalized in song and film, who themselves eventually fell victim to its insatiable thirst for blood:the enigmatic Zapata was a warrior saint, a true visionary whose mystical relation with the land still inspires guerrillas in Mexico's troubled south; the visceral northern Villa was a volatile bandit and military genius who turned the whimpers of bespectacled ideologues into a conflagration that would engulf his country. McLynn offers us a rich insight into the lives of two giants who shaped an era, yet whose most enduring lesson was far from epic: when given the opportunity to become masters of Mexico, neither took it, saving their loyalty for their homelands. It was a lesson not lost on those who built from their efforts a nation still populated by the ragged poor and pampered millionaires. (Kirkus UK)

Synopsis
The Mexican Revolution (1910-19) was the first seismic social convulsion of the twentieth century, superseded in historical importance only by the Russian and Chinese revolutions. Tierra y Libertad (land and liberty) was the watchword of the revolutionaries who fought a succession of autocrats in Mexico City. But the revolution was fired by a confusing multiplicity of issues: local, national, international, cultural, racial and economic. The two greatest rebel leaders were Francisco (Pancho) Villa and Emiliano Zapata, and Frank McLynn here tells the story of the Revolution through a dual biography of these legendary heroes. The great ten-year struggle that devastated Mexico was essentially a war on two fronts: in the north waged by Villa and a mobile army of excowboys and ranchers; and in the south carried on by Zapata and an infantry army recruited from the peons of the sugar plantations. Villa was the Revolution's great military hero, but Zapata was its soul and the only rebel whose revolt was aimed at a genuine root-and-branch transformation of Mexican society. The two men reached the peak of their careers in 1914 when they met briefly in triumph in Mexico City.

Failing to make common cause, over the next five years they gradually fell victim to their great rivals. Mixed up in the turbulent melting pot of revolution were the US government, American oil interests and German secret agents, and among the dramatic events McLynn discusses are Villa's raid on Columbus, Pershing's punitive expedition south of the border and the Zimmermann telegraph.

Customer Reviews

Excellent one volume history
Excellent, thorough and concise introduction to the period. McLynn engagingly humanises the most inhuman of civil wars. Highly recommended. Contains an exhaustive bibliography for those wishing to take their study further.

The Mystery Un-covered
The Mexican revolution is an unusual tale that sadly never gets told. This book aims to tell the story focusing on its main heros Zapata and Villa. The book however is not a biography of those two people it simply explains there role in the revolution remaining both admant and critical. The book also follows the story behind other important people such as Obregon and Diaz giving a thorough and chronological account of the origins and aftermath of the revolution whilst giving a vivid picture of the actual revolution. It reads almost like a western and makes clear the revolution in both historical and ideological terms. A must for understanding modern mexico.