Apostle of Progress is a biography of Modesto C. Rolland, a propagandist of the Mexican Revolution and a noted civil engineer who played a prominent role in the modernization of Mexico in the first half of the twentieth century. Born in 1881 in La Paz, in what was then the remote territory of Baja California, he was the son of a French immigrant and a Mexican mother. Rolland pursued his university studies and early career under the dictatorship of General Porfirio Díaz before supporting the revolutionary leader Francisco I. Madero, whose coalition overthrew Díaz in 1911. At that time, Rolland had already gained recognition as a leader in construction with reinforced concrete. After Madero's overthrow and assassination in February 1913, Rolland served as a communications officer for the Constitutionalists, an alliance arrayed against General Victoriano Huerta's new dictatorship. In particular, he became a propagandist for the Constitutionalists in the United...

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