this is one of the seminal works on the mexican revolution, written by my first prof of latin american history at the big H. went and pulled up my lj entry from freshman year:
"why'd he have to go and die??? I mean... he's Zapata, so of course he dies... but I've come to like him overthe past 330 pages. and it's so abrupt and unfair! he'd come through so much, and so what if it didn't look like he was going to succeed any time soon. I wanted him to be victorious! and really victorious, not just temporarily and quasi happy. He never had a chance to get to know his children! I hate Gonzalez and Carrenza and every one who came before them and hounded the poor man so much. and I still have 50 pages left."
for those of you who don't know, Zapata was a revolutionary leader from central Mexico dedicated to agrarian reform and the rights of peasant farmers. he formed a revolutionary militia in his home state and joined up with other revolutionary leaders in order to overthrow Porfirio Diaz and reform Mexico. Of course, as happens when there are too many leaders with too many different aims, alliances changed and Zapata ended up on the losing side of the bargain, dead. Of course, in the long run, his ideals became the ideals of the Revolutionary government and he was turned into a hero.
Anyways, the book is a classic for a reason - it's a wonderful read, and an incredible piece of research. Womack interviewed anyone still alive, went through all the archives, and managed to reconstruct Mexico in the nineteen teens in both factual and hypothetical detail that brings it to life and made me write what i did four years ago. as a piece of scholarship it's almost unmatched, but it's also a great story - riveting, full of intriguing characters, betrayal, courage, everything. it's narrative history, the story of one man, but through him, the story of a pivotal moment in world history.
it's the kind of history i want to write someday. may not ever happen, but it's there as a goal.
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