This book is basically a disappointment. The author endeavors to analyze the development of the official myth of the Mexican Revolution by tracing the formulation of the hero cults surrounding Francisco Madero, Emiliano Zapata, Venustiano Carranza, and Francisco Villa. The book also attempts to analyze, in somewhat haphazard terms, the government’s traditional claim that it is carrying on a revolutionary mandate. Even though O’Malley grapples with an interesting and novel topic, her goals have not been achieved.
Although written in a clear and vigorous style free of jargon, the book is weakened by its superficial research. The author utilized newspaper sources imaginatively, but did not dig into archival sources, and so her understanding of these four leaders is weak. The section on Madero contains little on the real significance of the Madero regime and too much on the politics of the Maximato. Her analysis of Zapata is romanticized and patronizing. The portrait of Carranza is the least convincing; O’Malley does not understand the nature of his support or Carranza’s background as a reformer. Although O’Malley attempts to cast Villa as a peasant leader, she does a good job of presenting him as the most compelling figure in the popular mind.
The Myth of the Revolution hires better in describing the official attempts to either denigrate these leaders or promote them. Cárdenas modified the Maximato’s efforts to emphasize Madero and Zapata in favor of Carranza. Naturally, all of the 1920-40 regimes avoided Villa, whom the PRI adopted afterward as part of an effort to stifle growing disenchantment. Even so, official interpretations since 1940, as well as the new historiographical trends affecting these four figures, are not distilled.
The book closes with an unconvincing attempt to claim that the government inculcated patriarchal values and masculine imagery to quiet class antagonisms. O’Malley also fails to take into account the socioeconomic realities and rising political protest that have weakened the PRI in the last 20 years. Although The Myth of the Revolution will be of interest to students of twentieth-century Mexico, it is not a significant contribution.
