Customer Reviews

Pancho Villa: Una Biografia Narrativa (Spanish Edition)

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
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An excellent read and probably set to become the definitive biography of Pancho Villa. Taibo covers the entire life (30 years) from the various aspects - outlaw, social reformer, military, family, political, film (!), of a man who was a larger than life. Villa taught himself to read before escaping the Mexican equivalent of Alcatraz. A complete teetotaler, he would shoot his drunk officers on the spot and preferred an ice cream. A champion of education, he provided the first free public schools as a governor. He had the first air force of Latin America and effectively used tactics and technology in an age when machine guns and horsed cavalries met in battle.

As the title indicates, the book is a narrative biography which in the hands of Taibo, a police/crime novelist, is an absorbing read. While sympathetic to Villa (difficult not be), the book is thoroughly researched and provides various primary source references that provide a holistic view and help discern from what was myth and fact. The book also has 400 + pictures, many previously unpublished as noted in the back cover. However, they are small in size (2 inches long x 1 inch wide). The book is in Spanish and at the time of this writing (March 2009) there is no English translation of this book on Amazon.

Highly recommended for research, Mexican Revolution, war films, US-Mexico relations, and just general reading. Definitely one of the most fascinating persons in the 20th century. See also the review from Criticas [...]

For the intermediate level Spanish reader this book is very accessible. The story is told in an interesting way, too. The book is fun to read as well as being informative. Be prepared for a long read, though.

I purchased this as a gift and the recipient was very pleased as was I since it's condition and arrival time were great

It got here in good shape. It was a gift I gave. They liked it a lot.