As a sort of subtitle the author says that this is an account of the “great revolution of the 20th century.” This is not calculated to make friends in the Kremlin or to warm the hearts of Maoist partisans. It will probably not assure him a warm welcome if he should divert a plane to Cuba.

This work adds little if anything to the literature on the Mexican Revolution, which began in 1910 and which the Mexicans, perhaps tongue-in-cheek, maintain is still a going thing. Maybe so, but it has changed direction considerably.

The book is of special interest because of two things. First, it brings an important period of history to Italian readers and might well be used in Italian schools since it is a paperback and thus relatively inexpensive. Secondly, the author’s attitude toward the Mexican Revolution is different from that of most Mexican and U.S. historians. Where the latter tend to be matter of fact, Ricciu becomes highly emotional about such things as the quasi-legal assassination of Madero. He also displays in photographs the cadavers of Villa, Zapata, and Carranza. The cadaver of Villa is shown semi-nude, making clear the bullet holes and other incidental mutilations.

Ricciu ends his book with the regime of Cárdenas some thirty years ago. This is perhaps quite logical since the real essence of the Mexican Revolution probably ended then. Although General Lázaro Cárdenas still has much influence in western Mexico and is still revered by the campesinos, his influence in government is minimal. Likewise, while many of the reforms initiated and made into law after the Revolution still persist, much of the revolutionary fervor has quietly passed away. Even a central idea of the Revolution the dividing of large land-holdings among the small farmers—has long since been found to be generally impractical and uneconomic. Moreover, the tremendous population explosion in Mexico since the 1930s and the rapid industrialization of the country have made the ideas and aims of the Revolution seem more or less irrelevant in 1969.

Francesco Ricciu is an eminent scholar, intelligent and perspicacious. We regret that he did not continue his book to evaluate and comment on the past thirty years of “La rivoluzione messicana” or its sequel.