The history of a dictatorship's demise-and the many power struggles that followed on the rocky road to democracy in early twentieth-century Mexico.   The Mexican Revolution is one of the most important and ambitious sociopolitical experiments in modern times. This history by Charles C. Cumberland addresses the early years of this period, as the long dictatorship of Porfirio Díaz was finally overthrown and he was driven into exile due to the...

This is a tale that might be told around a campfire, night after night in the midst of a military campaign. The kinetic and garrulous Pancho Villa talking on and on about battles and men, bursting out with hearty, masculine laughter, weeping unashamed for fallen comrades, casually mentioning his hotheadedness-"one of my violent outbursts"-which sent one, two, or a dozen men before the firing squad, recounting amours, and always, always protesting...