Revolution

The Mexican revolution was the defining event in modern Mexican history. For years, radical activists had been stirring up opposition to Porfirio Díaz’s faltering project of modernization, and in 1910, an economic downturn and the dictator’s increasing repression prepared Mexicans across the social spectrum to repudiate the regime. Initially, Mexico was united in a revolutionary coalition nominally led by the moderate reformer Francisco Madero, who toppled Díaz in mid-1911. But the country entered a decade of violence when Madero failed to advance an adequate reform agenda and was toppled by the right, triggering the clash of an array of interests and factions. Part V attempts to make sense of the contending forces, their struggles, and how a fragile peace was ultimately restored by 1920. It provides assessments of the subsequent regimes of reconstruction and radicalization, to enable readers to understand the complex forces that contested and represented the revolution’s consolidation.