Zapata and the Mexican Revolution

John Womack has written the quentessential detailed work aboutthe geography, culture, surroundings, people, what impacted Zapata's decisions, what made himboth a strong and weak leader..and mostimportantly his overall impact on the Mexican Revolution. The book pulls no punches in being both critical and complimentary, to both Zapata and other key figures.For me, therefore, it rang true with a high degree of integrity. Having said that,I need to read more to be sure of what the author claims as truth. Yet hisattention to detail and incredibly referencing, lend great credence tothe high quality of the effort.Though I enjoyed the detail, at times it gets a bit overwhelming.I sure would fail at completing a crossword puzzle regarding who and whereand when and why for each campesino mentioned.And yet, as a book that gives you the whys, and wherefores, the ins and outs,Zapata's strengths and weaknesses, why he appealed to his compadres andwhy, in the end, he was killed... this book does it...in spades.If you want to know all the details, then this book is a must for you.If I were to write this book, which I could not, the detail is crushing andthe bibliographical references incredibly thorough, I wouldwrite fewer characters and a bit more about the heart and passion.Womack includes passion, but because of all the detail, some of theheart gets lost...for me. And it is hard to keep all the characters straight.But overwhelmingly interesting and like a dictionary of Zapata's involvementalong with each and every character who impacted him and therevolution.In the end, it leaves one saddened for what might have been, and yet enlightened and uplifted to know that Zapata, though he died way too early, didn't die without achieving significant results. Could he haveachieved much more had he lived, had he been a different personality, had he, blah, blah, blah...maybe. That one is for the professional historians to chew over. I loved him before comingto read the book and I respected his love for his people and sense of justice equally at the end.Current revolutionaries, such as Hugo Chavez, would do (have done) their country a favor were they to haveexhibited and stayed true to Zapata's committment to ethics, fairness and justice.

It is easier to describe what this book is not than what it is. The book is not a biography of Emiliano Zapata. It is also not a general history of the Mexican Revolution. What the book is, is an exhaustive and detailed treatment of the Mexican Revolution in the State of Morelos, the events leading up to the Revolution, and the events following the assassination of Zapata and the end of the fighting. This is excellent history which is rich in detail. This reviewer's only criticism is that the book is so detailed that it is easy to get lost in the details.The story of Zapata and the small farmers of Southern Mexico is another chapter in the endless struggle of the weak against the strong, the poor and disenfranchised against the rich. If you are reading history simply for pleasure, there are probably books about the Mexican Revolution with more of a narrative structure than this. Also, all you will learn about from this is the struggle in Morelos and Southern Mexico. There is little or nothing about Poncho Villa and his Division of the North. Still, this book is the definitive treatment of the struggle in the South.

This book is in better condition than stated! I am very pleased with the both the prompt service and the quality of the book itself. It is an excellent value for the money!

Let me say this is a book laden with names and places that are all but impossible to recall yet the flow and the ensuing narrative allows for an overall familiarity and eventual appreciation of the myth and the man and the truth of the times. Model's struggles are those of half a country or more. a microcosm of the world of the early 20th century when empires were starting to ebb from the hemisphere, autonomy seemed feasible, but outside influence reared its head whenever instability seemed possible and especially when resources were at risk. I believe this could be a fair view of the struggle as men are portrayed with strengths and weaknesses on full display. One beautiful moment in particular involves watching a modest agri-socialist community emerge out of design, necessity, and desire. A model not for everyone and not for every period in history but a small and simple Utopia that brought peace and relative prosperity to a region starved for both even to this day.

Probably not being fair to the author, but since there was some good history in the book I did give it a three star rating. I found the author's style of writing bothersome. Maybe it was just me but I found that at times he confused me as to what was happening. This book is similar in content to the Pancho Villa story by Katz. Both contain a lot of detailed information about the strife in Mexico during the time period. But, I found myself asking for more on Zapata that the tidbits the author seemed to be offering. Granted at times he does cover some of Zapata's manifests, but by the end I felt that I knew little about Zapata the man. If I were to make this review in the manner the author used to detail Zapata's death, I would have been done in the first sentence. For someone interested in details of the revolution this is a great book. Zapata?, who knows maybe there is not better book.

Very detailed. Extensively researched with the extensive footnotes expected. At times difficult to remember who is who due to similarity of the names. I will read it again after I digest other reads on the Mexican Revolution. So far, this is THE reference for Emiliano Zapata.

Insightful and a very easy read

I liked the Zapatista spirit in the faithful who never gave up the fight for what belonged to their ancestors. It’s a joy now to drive by agricultural fields that at one time were the haciendas.

Although by appearance a biography, John Womacks "Zapata and the Mexican Revolution" is much more than that. What the reader won't find in this biography is a strict biography of the involvement of Zapata in the Mexican Revolution according to the scheme "born, raised, fought in the revolution", but an extremely detailed vision of the microcosm that gave birth to and maintained the zapatista movement, which is Morelos. Capturing the political landscape, the situation in the villages and drawing from a strong archival work, John Womack succeeds in writing one of the most complete regional studies of the Mexican Revolution without ever losing the reader's attention.Exemplary work in historiography, not to mention his recovery of an important argument nearly lost in a vulgar marxist reading of the revolution: that the zapatista movement did not begin as a strictly revolutionary, but in its very sense conservative movement. A movement that wanted to "return" to how these revolutionaries understood their past and natural state of things.

A little dry initially