Buy this book on-line ATKIN**, RONALD: : REVOLUTION - MEXICO 1910-20LONDON.MacMILLAN,1969. ISBN No ISBN.
UK,8vo HB+protected dw/dj,1st edn.VG/VG.
Protected dw/dj,which has left sellotape marks to inside boards where taped down. Minus ffe,no price-clip to dw/dj,fore- edges browned/aged.8vo,354pp includes appendices,general and detailed sources, index and b/w photographs and 3 b/w maps -all called for.
The Mexican Revolution of 1910-20 has long exerted a peculiar fascination over the public imagination.Its heroes and heroines,its songs,battles and sieges,all
seem larger than life and many hundreds and thousands of printed words and feet of
film have been devoted to the exploits of men like Emiliano Zapata and Pancho Villa
- some of them hopelessly over-romantic,
others reflecting more accurately the bitterness and cruelty of the period.There
has,however,been no single complete account of these years and this book is the first.The story begins with the celebration in Sept,1910 of the centenary of Mexican independence and the eightieth birthday of the dictator Porfirio Diaz,a man whose much praised and outwardly secure-seeming regime was in fact,'dancing
on a volcano'.
All seemed secure,prosperous and hopeful,
yet the miles of new railways and exciting
oilfields were based on a hopeless economic policy designed to feather the nests of politicians and drain away the natural wealth of the country,and the great mass of Mexicans,both in the towns and in the haciendas,lived in conditions very close to slavery.Atkins guides the reader through the years that followed, drawing on a wide variety of sources, including eye-witness accounts,newspaper dispatches,diplomatic records and official
histories.He introduces the men who succeeded each other at the top of the
revolutionary pyramid:most achieved power through bloodshed,most died violently and ignobly.Francisco Madero,the Dreamer,who swept Diaz from power and was in turn toppled and murdered when he gave the people the vote instead of bread and land;
Victoriano Huerta the alcoholic general who followed Madero and held his Cabinet meetings in bars and cafes; Venustiano Carranza,the aloof landowner who replaced Huerta; Alvaro Obregon,the one-armed soldier who was to become one of Mexico's
outstanding Presidents; Pablo Gonzales,the
general who never won a battle,all are placed in their historical perspective.
Most important are the accounts of the two
archetypal revolutionary figures Emiliano Zapata and Pancho Villa,who are revealed in all their magnificence and cruelty.The Mexican Revolution was perhaps the first true social upheaval of this century.
Between 1910-20,the population of Mexico fell from 15 million to 12 million and its
certain that most of the suffering was borne by peasants who had little idea of what was at stake,or of the corruption and
self-seeking of their leadership,but for whom anything was preferable to the slavery of the Diaz years.
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