The Mexican Revolution was the first great popular upheaval of the twentieth century. It had begun modestly enough in 1910, as a modernizing bourgeoisie sought to reform the ramshackle oligarchic state. It was to last for ten years, locking Mexico into a complex and violent struggle. The southern peasantry raised the explosive demand for land reform. Their struggle reached its highest pitch with the entry of Zapata and Villa into Mexico City in December 1914. But the inability of the revolutionary forces to forge a genuine national structure and the political weakness of the working class doomed the radical impulse of the revolution to eventual frustration. The Institutional Revolutionary Party, which has ruled Mexico without a break for over sixty years, was the beneficiary of Obregon's stabilization of the state in 1920. It has nonetheless failed to erase the memory of peasant power.

This classic study has gone through sixteen editions in Spanish. An understanding of Mexico's turbulent history is vital today, as world attention is once again focussed on the country's strategic position in the Americas.