This little book, comprising just 59 pages of text, is No. 8 in the publisher’s “Presencia de México” series. The author is a journalist whose life roughly spans this century, and to whom the Mexican Revolution symbolizes the idealism of his youth, the vigor of his middle years, and the devoted reflection of his later life.
To the professional—unless it is the non-Mexican or, even, non-Latin American historian seeking a brief overview of the Mexican Revolution—the work is too brief and sketchy. The author defines the revolution as the period from the Creelman interview to the drawing up of the Constitution of 1917. To a scholar seeking a Mexican writer’s survey of this period, the two volumes, comprising 600 pages of text, of Jesús Silva Herzog’s Breve historia de la Revolución Mexicana (6th ed., 1969), published by the same well-known house in its “Colección Popular” series would be much more valuable.
For the lay reader, this little survey may be quite helpful. The author’s viewpoint is unspectacular, comprising a critical but not denunciatory assessment of the Porfirio Díaz regime, emphasis on Madero as a political revolutionary only, complete repudiation of Huerta, and stress on Carranza’s constitutionalism. The writer’s style is pedestrian, but clear. He eschews anti-Yanqui comments with reference to events in which it would be both tempting and justifiable to include them. Lack of space almost entirely precluded consideration of Villa and Zapata. The author evidently knew the Maderista, Alfredo Robles Domínguez well, and makes a couple of specific references to his part in, or assessment of, events. A useful feature of the book is a large and particularly variegated collection of photographs.
