Some of the most famous Western movies have been set against the background of the Mexican Revolution of the early 20th century. Now, for the first time in English, Osprey offer a concise but fact-packed account of the events, armies, uniforms and weapons of those ten chaotic and bloody years, putting in context such famous but half-understood names as Diaz, Pancho Villa, Zapata, Madero and Huerta. The text is illustrated with many rare and fascinating period photographs, and with eight detailed color plates of orfiristas and Rurales, Maderisitas, Federales, Villistas, Zapatistas,and US volunteers and intervention troops.

“An excellent account and analysis of the Mexican Revolution, its background, its course, and its legacy . . . an important contribution [and] a must read!” (Samuel Farber, author of Cuba Since the Revolution of 1959). The most significant event in modern Mexican history, the Mexican Revolution of 1910-20 remains a subject of debate and controversy. Why did it happen? What makes it distinctive? Was it even a revolution at all? In The Mexican Revolution, Stuart Easterling offers a concise chronicle of events from the fall of the longstanding Díaz regime to Gen. Obregón’s ascent to the presidency. In a comprehensible style, aimed at students and general readers, Easterling sorts through the revolution’s many internal conflicts, and asks whether or not its leaders achieved their goals.

In 1910 insurgent leaders crushed the Porfirian dictatorship, but in the years that followed fought among themselves, until a nationalist consensus produced the 1917 Constitution. This in turn provided the basis for a reform agenda that transformed Mexico in the modern era. The civil war and the reforms that followed receive new and insightful attention in this book. These essays, the result of the 45th annual Walter Prescott Webb Memorial Lectures, presented by the University of Texas at Arlington in March 2010, commemorate the centennial of the outbreak of the revolution. A potent mix of factors—including the concentration of wealth in the hands of a few thousand hacienda owners, rancheros, and foreign capitalists; the ideological conflict between the Diaz government and the dissident regional reformers; and the grinding poverty afflicting the majority of the nation’s eleven million industrial and rural laborers—provided the volatile fuel that produced the first major political and social revolution of the twentieth century. The conflagration soon swept across the Rio Grande; indeed, The Mexican Revolution shows clearly that the struggle in Mexico had tremendous implications for the American Southwest. During the years of revolution, hundreds of thousands of Mexican citizens crossed the border into the United States. As a result, the region experienced waves of ethnically motivated violence, economic tensions, and the mass expulsions of Mexicans and US citizens of Mexican descent.

Drawing on archives on both sides of the border, the author chronicles the political currents which created and then undermined the Mexican border as a relative safe haven for African Americans.

Recounts the events surrounding the Mexican Revolution, covering key moments, conflicts, and developments from 1910 to 1920 and explaining how Mexicans fought for social and economic justice while shaping modern Mexico.

On November 20, 1910, Mexicans initiated the world?s first popular social revolution. The unbalanced progress of the previous regime triggered violence and mobilized individuals from all classes to demand social and economic justice. In the process they shaped modern Mexico at a cost of two million lives.

This comprehensive two-volume history of the Mexican Revolution presents a new interpretation of one of the world's most important revolutions. While it reflects the many facets of this complex and far-reaching historical subject it emphasises its fundamentally local, popular and agrarian character and locates it within a more general comparative context.-- Publisher.