Isidro Fabela, who was in charge of the Foreign Office for the Carranza-led Constitutionalist movement and who, among many other writings, published a Historia diplomática de la Revolución Mexicana (2 vols., 1958-59), initiates here a series of documentary volumes dealing with the initial decade of the Revolution. The present volume, consisting of two hundred and twenty-three documents and related contemporary materials, covers the period of the Constitutionalist Revolution from February, 1913, through July, 1915. The author plans two or three volumes on the Madero revolution and regime in addition to supplementing the present volume with others on the Constitutionalist regime.
A large portion of the documents contained in the volume under review are drawn from Fabela’s own rich archives, supplemented by Carranza papers furnished by the First Chief’s daughters. The arrangement of material is generally chronological, although related correspondence is printed together. As a service to investigators Lie. Fabela has introduced each selection with a synthesis of the text as well as by an abbreviated reference to the archival source of the material. Unfortunately the present volume does not include a list of the equivalents of the archival abbreviations. While the specialist can recognize Fabela’s archives (A.I.F.) and Barragán’s papers (B), other archival references are not so easily identified. When completed this documentary series should prove to be an invaluable tool for the investigator of aspects of the initial decade of the Mexican Revolution.
