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Zapata and the Mexican Revolution

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In every field of endeavor, in every activity known to Man, whether sailboarding or physics, hairdressing or chipmunk catching, there are people who excel, people who go far beyond the rest. They reach the epitome while we mere mortals look up from below and marvel. So, when you have read the 526 pages of Womack Jr.'s book [not counting the appendices], you can tell yourself that you have read THE book on Zapata and his role in the Mexican Revolution. The author used every source available, he interviewed all those who were left alive to talk. I wonder if any new printed sources will ever be found ? Certainly everyone who played a role, however insignificant, in those long ago days of 1909-1920 is now dead, making new interviews extremely unlikely. This is a work of art, a work of love, and a vast labor that surely took a few years off the life of the author, not to mention breaking some relationships. It is the definitive work so far on the subject. If you want to know the story of why and how Emiliano Zapata, a once insignificant small town horse trader and farmer, became a legendary rebel whose name resounds throughout Mexico today---a man who fought unwaveringly for the rights of small farmers and villagers to the land they worked---then you have no choice but to read this volume. This is the epitome, this is the story in unbelievable detail; political, economic, social, military. And yet, Zapata himself almost disappears in the vast bulk of detailed historical and interpretive observations. It is not so much a work on an individual as on the whole period in a small area of Mexico.

If you want a general history of the Mexican Revolution because you are just beginning to think about the subject, if you are looking for concise explanations, then this is not the book you need. ZAPATA AND THE MEXICAN REVOLUTION is for college courses on Latin American history, or for the scholar who wants every detail in Zapata's long struggle, for the person who wants to know what the peasants and small town dwellers of the state of Morelos went through in the first two decades of the twentieth century. The work is impressive, not only for its vast wealth of detail, but for its compassion and sympathy for the aims of those people who made tremendous sacrifices for their cause. Good photographs, a good map of Morelos. If you are not that interested in Mexico, but would just like to see what a great, academic, social history book could be like, I can recommend this book without hesitation. At times, the detail is overwhelming, a vast body of characters and place names that can hardly be absorbed. [There are around 90 footnotes to each chapter, sometimes more.] But, if you want to know the whole story, this is the book for you. It is the best.

This is one of the most important works of Latin American history, a highly readable account of the peasant uprising led by Emiliano Zapata in 1914. Womack's book is a social history, focusing on the long struggle of peasants in Morelos state, just south of Mexico City, to keep their communal lands, a struggle that became especially bitter with the encroachment of capitalist-style agriculture in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. It is a story of isolated and bloody uprisings, and of village elders who hid the papers granting the land to the campesinos (old parchments issued by the Spanih crown) by burying them under churches during times of war and turmoil. It is the story of Emiliano Zapata, a humble peasant who ends up leading a rebel army that takes Mexico City, and of his eventual betrayal and martyrdom in a hail of bullets. I read this book 15 years ago but the images from it are still etched in my memory. Read it if you want to understand Mexico and its history.

John Womack's historical account of the Mexican Revolution truly focuses on General Emiliano Zapata and his home state of Morelos. If you're looking for a broad account of the Mexican Revolution that really includes Pancho Villa's struggle and the interventions of the U.S. government, this is not the book you are looking for. But Womack does provide one of the most notable accounts of the Revolution, and nowhere else will you get this level of insight into Zapata's character and struggle.

Zapata quickly rose from his position as chief of the peasants in a village seeking agrarian reform to the leader of a state-wide movement. His single-minded dedication to the cause of justice in land-rights made him a hero to the people. However, what Womack misses in his account of the decade-long revolution in Morelos is the hellishness of war. The oppressive governments of the time, from Diaz to Huerta, were not the only one's whose armies attacked civilians and burned their homes, displacing whole villages. There was an element of banditry even among the Zapatistas. And by glossing over the moral struggles and compromises of the war, Womack does his hero a disservice; the reader does not see the difficulty Zapata faces in making moral sacrifices for the greater cause of the Revolution.

Womack's depiction of the Revolution is idealized, but despite the gloss put on certain parts, it is accurate. If you are looking for a book rich in historical fact, this is the book for you; just keep in mind that even the best historians may have a blind spot.

Womack's timeless dissertation on Zapata is still the authority on one of the most interesting men of the Mexican Revolution. Zapata never wanted power for himself and fought for the peasants of Morelos. His desire for land reform is exposed here as well as his strategy and life. It is an excellent biography and presents a small facet of the revolution. If you have not read anything on the revolution this is not the book to start with. It assumes that you have a working knowledge of the revolution and does an excellent job of conveying the information of Zapata's ideals.

Without doubt the finest english language account available about the agrarian reform hero Emiliano Zapata;
Womack brillantly describes the social and economic conditions that caused the Mexican revolution. His depiction of the central character Zapata is eloquent and a worthy homage to the champion of Mexico's poor and indigenous.
I was particularly impressed by the level of the author's research into the political and economic background of the period. A magnificent book that places you right in the middle of the turmoil that gripped central and southern Mexico.
Recommended to all scholars of the Mexican revolution.

It is easier to describe what this book is not than what it is. The book is not a biography of Emiliano Zapata. It is also not a general history of the Mexican Revolution. What the book is, is an exhaustive and detailed treatment of the Mexican Revolution in the State of Morelos, the events leading up to the Revolution, and the events following the assassination of Zapata and the end of the fighting. This is excellent history which is rich in detail. This reviewer's only criticism is that the book is so detailed that it is easy to get lost in the details.

The story of Zapata and the small farmers of Southern Mexico is another chapter in the endless struggle of the weak against the strong, the poor and disenfranchised against the rich. If you are reading history simply for pleasure, there are probably books about the Mexican Revolution with more of a narrative structure than this. Also, all you will learn about from this is the struggle in Morelos and Southern Mexico. There is little or nothing about Poncho Villa and his Division of the North. Still, this book is the definitive treatment of the struggle in the South.

This is an excellent tool for any researcher or student of the Mexican Revolution and Emiliano Zapata. Mr. Womack's volume is by far the best English language book on Zapata that I have ever read. It is absorbing and accurate. A perfect blend of historical data and fine storytelling.

I am not an authority on the life of Emiliano Zapata and realize his life was and is entangled in much myth. Nevertheless, I feel his life is worth reading about and there is no better strat than with Womack's account (or perhaps Samuel Brunk's). Great book written about a Mexican legend.

*** (pg 63)..regarding the land grab - "If they want to farm, let them farm in a flower pot"*** for some reason, it sounds considerably familiar to that other famous statement from the aristocracy of yet another land - "Let Them Eat Cake".

It was a strange gathering that day Anenecuilco, because an entire group of old men who are in power usually don't unanimously agree to pass the torch those younger than they so easily. But the wisdom that had befriended them all these years refused to blind itself to reality, and nominations were called for; one of them was Emiliano Zapata. He was not rich, because no one there was, but his family owned property, livestock, and in carrying this on, Zapata showed a business head, but also a responsibility to his people and his involvement if community affairs began early. He was also a master horseman; and all of this taken together was enough to inspire confidence in those who desperately needed a young, intelligent emerging leader against the travail that had daily threatened the very existence of the village. And early on, he noticed the disparity of the classes, the inequitable, the amassing of personal fortunes by those in "control of politics" built on the backs of others; and in the 1909 "devaluing" of the large, already wealthy landowners so that their taxes were essentially circumvented, reshuffled the tax burden to the small, already overburdened farmers was a blatant slap in the face..talk about "taxation without representation". These are the seeds of Revolution, sown on fertile soil, and Zapata returned from stint in the army ready to put what he had learned to use in an entirely different direction.

I became interested in the Mexican Revolution not only because of my interest in our own of 1776, but because I happened to see a movie entitled "Viva Zapata" which featured Marlon Brando and Anthony Quinn. It was only a movie, but it was intriguing, I could tell it followed Mexican history and because I had not read much about Mexico itself since a historical textbok briefing (very brief) in high school, I found this book. It's a scholar's accounting, complete with footnotes, but the thread of story is not lost even so; such a history can never be dull, because the events themselves prevent that. It's another clear example of what happens when oppressed people are pushed to the edge of their endurance.

If history repeats itself, it's dangerously close again today. Mexico is a land of immense potential, and if that potential were tapped and realized through equal opportunities and the resulting labors of all of their people that would surely happen were those opportunities there, there would be little reason for them to be wading across rivers and digging under fences today.

Heroes may still be out there somewhere, but they are far and few between - and small wonder, since both they and we know what will be required of - and extracted from - them. This fine book is recommended as a source for anyone wishing to read of Mexico and it's past.