I grew up in Mexico listening to my father´s stories about the Mexican revolution. His storytelling abilities drew me in as he described his childhood memories and those of his father, who lived through the revolution. That's why I became a historian writing about the Mexican Revolution with a preference for biographies. As the Latin Americanist historian at St. John's University in New York City, I've written two books: Maximino Avila Camacho and the One Party State, Pancho Villa: A Biography, and edited A Brief History of Mexico by Lynn V. Foster. I hope you enjoy the list of books on significant personalities that shaped the first major social revolution of the twentieth century.
I was immediately hooked by Dr. John Womack's Zapatawhen I read it in graduate school. His combined storytelling and scholarship abilities are precisely what made me fall in love with history. Furthermore, this book inspired me to write Pancho Villa to complement the narrative of the revolution. Because, while Pancho Villa is the revolutionary leader fighting for the rights of mixed-race working class of the Mexican north, Zapata is the revolutionary leader committed to restoring the dignity and the ancestral lands of the indigenous population of the Mexican south. Here, Womack masterfully weaves Zapata's life with the Mexican Revolution. An unquestionably classic, this book is a praised scholarly work that reads like a novel.
This essential volume recalls the activities of Emiliano Zapata (1879-1919), a leading figure in the Mexican Revolution; he formed and commanded an important revolutionary force during this conflict. Womack focuses attention on Zapata's activities and his home state of Morelos during the Revolution. Zapata quickly rose from his position as a peasant leader in a village seeking agrarian reform. Zapata's dedication to the cause of land rights made him a hero to the people. Womack describes the contributing factors and conditions preceding the Mexican Revolution, creating a narrative that examines political and agrarian transformations on local and national levels.
I grew up in Mexico listening to my father´s stories about the Mexican revolution. His storytelling abilities drew me in as he described his childhood memories and those of his father, who lived through the revolution. That's why I became a historian writing about the Mexican Revolution with a preference for biographies. As the Latin Americanist historian at St. John's University in New York City, I've written two books: Maximino Avila Camacho and the One Party State, Pancho Villa: A Biography, and edited A Brief History of Mexico by Lynn V. Foster. I hope you enjoy the list of books on significant personalities that shaped the first major social revolution of the twentieth century.
I love this book because it shows the real complexities of the socioeconomic realities that Mexicans experienced leading to the revolution. By focusing on the life of Porfirio Diaz, Paul Garner offers a nuanced narrative challenging six decades of the revolutionary government and most historians consistently condemning Diaz as an unredeemable tyrant. Instead, Garneroffers a more realistic explanation of the achievements and failures of the dictator responsible for simultaneously resurrecting the Mexican economy and producing the biggest social upheaval in Mexican history.
The fall of Porfirio Diaz has traditionally been presented as a watershed between old and new: an old style repressive and conservative government, and the more democratic and representative system that flowered in the wake of the Mexican Revolution. Now this view is being challenged by a new generation of historians, who point out that Diaz originally rose to power in alliance with anti-conservative forces and was a modernising force as well as a dictator. Drawing together the threads of this revisionist reading of the Porfiriato, Garner reassesses a political career that spanned more than forty years, and examines the…
My book club rescued this classic Mexican novel from my TBR pile, where it had languished far too long.
I am grateful because when I finally read it, I found Pedro Páramo bewitching. On her deathbed, a mother commands her son to return to their original village to find his father. Everyone he meets there is dead, and the dead have stories to tell.
When Pedro Páramo was first published in 1955, readers didn’t know what to think of this precursor to magical realism, but then it caught on in a big way. Gabriel García Márquez claimed he could recite the entire novella.
A new movie version starring Tenoch Huerta Mejía from Wakanda Forever will be out soon. You’ll want to read the book before seeing the film.
Winner, Fred Whitehead Award for the Best Design of a Trade Book from Texas Institute of Letters Western Books Exhibition Selection, Rounce & Coffin Club, 2003 Deserted villages of rural Mexico, where images and memories of the past linger like unquiet ghosts, haunted the imaginations of two artists-writer Juan Rulfo and photographer Josephine Sacabo. In one such village of the mind, Comala, Rulfo set his classic novel Pedro Paramo, a dream-like tale that intertwines a man's quest to find his lost father and reclaim his patrimony with the father's obsessive love for a woman who will not be possessed-Susana San…
One of the things I love about reading short story collections is that I can read a story, enjoy it, and then put the collection aside and then read another story later.
This was a short story collection I literally could not put down. As soon as I finished one story, I needed to turn the page and see what the next story had to offer. This collection explores the supernatural lore of Mexico while spanning its history and peering into its near future.
My favorite stories were “Bed of Scorpions” about a brother and sister running a con and “Cemetery Man” about a mad scientist during the Mexican Revolution resurrecting soldiers.
Spanning a variety of genres-fantasy, science fiction, horror-and time periods, Silvia Moreno-Garcia's exceptional debut collection features short stories infused with Mexican folklore yet firmly rooted in a reality that transforms as the fantastic erodes the rational. This speculative fiction compilation, lyrical and tender, quirky and cutting, weaves the fantastic and the horrific alongside the touchingly human. Perplexing and absorbing, the stories lift the veil of reality to expose the realms of what lies beyond with creatures that shed their skin and roam the night, vampires in Mexico City that struggle with disenchantment, an apocalypse with giant penguins, legends of magic…
I grew up in Mexico listening to my father´s stories about the Mexican revolution. His storytelling abilities drew me in as he described his childhood memories and those of his father, who lived through the revolution. That's why I became a historian writing about the Mexican Revolution with a preference for biographies. As the Latin Americanist historian at St. John's University in New York City, I've written two books: Maximino Avila Camacho and the One Party State, Pancho Villa: A Biography, and edited A Brief History of Mexico by Lynn V. Foster. I hope you enjoy the list of books on significant personalities that shaped the first major social revolution of the twentieth century.
I was always fascinated by the story of Alvaro Obregon—this apparently unassuming general of the revolution slowly but surely knocking out one by one anyone getting on his way to become Mexico´s strongman. Not a minor feat considering that these include powerful and charismatic titans such as Pancho Villa and Venustiano Carranza. An ingenious strategist general and an uncanny political operator, Obregon is the man who finally brings peace and stability to Mexico after a long decade of unimaginable violence. Linda Hall beautifully threads the history of the revolution with the slow but effective rise of Obregon from a modest farmer to the presidency of Mexico.
The Mexican Revolution produced some romantic and heroic figures. In Mexico at the time, however, one man loomed large as the embodiment of revolutionary goals and the one leader able to take the country from strife into peace. That man was Alvaro Obregón.
Less well-known to North Americans than his contemporaries and sometime allies Emiliano Zapata and Pancho Villa, Obregón eventually formed the first stable government of post-revolutionary Mexico. Stories of his daring and near-invincibility abounded as he led revolutionary forces against the usurper Huerta, then against the "bandit" elements within the Revolution itself. Throughout the period of fighting, however,…
I grew up in Mexico listening to my father´s stories about the Mexican revolution. His storytelling abilities drew me in as he described his childhood memories and those of his father, who lived through the revolution. That's why I became a historian writing about the Mexican Revolution with a preference for biographies. As the Latin Americanist historian at St. John's University in New York City, I've written two books: Maximino Avila Camacho and the One Party State, Pancho Villa: A Biography, and edited A Brief History of Mexico by Lynn V. Foster. I hope you enjoy the list of books on significant personalities that shaped the first major social revolution of the twentieth century.
For me, history is the richest when it is explored from different perspectives. The Worm in the Wheat explores a perspective seldom feature in the narratives of the revolution. It focuses on the struggles of Rosalie Evans to defend her hacienda against the revolution. The story itself is a fascinating narrative enveloped in tension and drama. It is full of political intrigue and shifting alliances shaped by the violence of the social revolution.
The Worm in the Wheat is a compelling tale of political intrigue, violence, shifting allegiances, extreme poverty, and the recalcitrance of one woman. Above all, it is a multileveled interpretation of the Mexican revolution and the ultimate failure of agrarian reform. Timothy J. Henderson recounts the story of Rosalie Evans, a woman who lost her life defending her Mexican hacienda in defiance of confiscation decrees. This dramatic narrative is populated with many diverse actors: Mexican, British, and American officials, soldiers, rebel leaders, bureaucrats, peasants, vigilantes, and the unforgettable figure of Evans herself. In a world where power and wealth are…
I've taught Latin American literature for many years and in many different ways, but there's one thing that has never changed. I always combine our study of literature with relevant works of visual arts, and particularly with paintings and photographs. Don’t we all move naturally among different media—different forms of expression, different ways of seeing—to understand our world? An interdisciplinary approach allows us to explore the many ways that we imagine and represent reality. Photography is a wide-ranging way to know Latin America. For this reason, I recommend that you pay close attention to the rich traditions of Latin American photography. Mix and match media, and you’ll understand the world in new and different ways.
Having read The Winds that Swept Mexico and seen the amazing photographs in that book, you’ll want to know more about the photographers who risked their lives to accompany Mexican troops in battle and in haphazard camps waiting for something to happen.
This book includes many photographs, but focusses on the history of the Revolution as shown in those photographs, and the processes of photography itself: how photographers worked in the early twentieth century in the midst of war, and how their photographs were collected and published as the Revolution raged on.
John Mraz is an excellent “visual historian.” I admire the way he explains how photographers got their “shots” of mounted revolutionaries and battles and camp followers—the sweethearts and wives and children who followed the troops, cooked for them, and sometimes tended to their wounds.
Mraz also explains how their photographs became instant propaganda for particular leaders and causes—and…
The Mexican Revolution of 1910-1920 is among the world's most visually documented revolutions. Coinciding with the birth of filmmaking and the increased mobility offered by the reflex camera, it received extraordinary coverage by photographers and cineastes-commercial and amateur, national and international. Many images of the Revolution remain iconic to this day-Francisco Villa galloping toward the camera; Villa lolling in the presidential chair next to Emiliano Zapata; and Zapata standing stolidly in charro raiment with a carbine in one hand and the other hand on a sword, to mention only a few. But the identities of those who created the thousands…
I've taught Latin American literature for many years and in many different ways, but there's one thing that has never changed. I always combine our study of literature with relevant works of visual arts, and particularly with paintings and photographs. Don’t we all move naturally among different media—different forms of expression, different ways of seeing—to understand our world? An interdisciplinary approach allows us to explore the many ways that we imagine and represent reality. Photography is a wide-ranging way to know Latin America. For this reason, I recommend that you pay close attention to the rich traditions of Latin American photography. Mix and match media, and you’ll understand the world in new and different ways.
The Mexican Revolution was photographed by many photographers, foreigners as well as Mexicans, whose photographs were collected by news agencies and distributed immediately in newspapers, sometimes even as the fighting was going on. Their photos record defining moments in Mexico’s history, and offer portraits of its participants: soldiers and camp followers (women and children), as well as iconic leaders Pancho Villa and Emiliano Zapata, among others.
I love this book because it is written by a woman who lived her whole life in Mexico, experienced events of the Revolution, and knew many of its participants. Her personal account is accompanied by 184 photos that enhance her text and make events and people come alive.
The importance of this Revolution cannot be exaggerated. It engulfed much of Mexico for at least two decades (1910-1930), and claimed between 2 and 3.5 million lives. Troops advanced on horseback and trains, in dusty fields…
The Mexican Revolution began in 1910 with the overthrow of dictator Porfirio Diaz. The Wind That Swept Mexico, originally published in 1943, was the first book to present a broad account of that revolution in its several different phases. In concise but moving words and in memorable photographs, this classic sweeps the reader along from the false peace and plenty of the Diaz era through the doomed administration of Madero, the chaotic years of Villa and Zapata, Carranza and Obregon, to the peaceful social revolution of Cardenas and Mexico's entry into World War II.
Growing up queer and Italian in suburban New Jersey in the late 1960s and early 70s, it was the passionate love of food and family that got me through the tough times. I learned to cook from my mother and my grandmothers. I gardened and picked tomatoes with my grandfathers. There was always a pot of simmering tomato gravy and magic meatballs on the stove. My mother’s chicken parmigiana, my paternal grandmother’s homemade ravioli, my maternal grandmother’s stuffed clams, my great aunt’s baked chicken. As a writer, it became my mission to share these secret family recipes and the loving life lessons that saved me.
Laura Esquivel’s delicious love story is chock full of cooking and magic realism. When protagonist Tita first sees Pedro, a forbidden passion ignites and burns bright. It consumes and almost devours the young lovers at the center of this novel.
When I set out to write my book, I wanted to include elements of magic realism and lots of cooking. Growing up Italian in New Jersey, the magic of food was a huge part of my upbringing. Like Tita in Like Water for Chocolate, I learned very early in life that great cooking is the best way to capture and keep anyone’s heart.
THE INTOXICATING INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER ABOUT LOVE, COOKING AND MAGIC. PERFECT FOR FANS OF JOANNE HARRIS AND ISABEL ALLENDE.
'This magical, mythical, moving story of love, sacrifice and summering sensuality is something I will savour for a long time' MAUREEN LIPMAN
Like Water For Chocolate tells the captivating story of the De la Garza family. As the youngest daughter, Tita is forbidden by Mexican tradition to marry. Instead, she pours all of her emotions into her delicious recipes, which she shares with readers along the way.When Tita falls in love with Pedro, he is seduced by the magical food she cooks.…
Mexikid
uses the graphic novel format cleverly and beautifully to interweave lore and
flashbacks into a road trip story about a family driving to Mexico to
bring their abuelo back to the US.
This book has the funniest haircut scene
(and haircut) I've encountered. The interactions of the nine siblings are my
favorite part, though—so truthfully and hilariously captured.
The story is also touching and personal as
Pedro, the narrator, learns about his Mexican heritage and family history. It's one of the best graphic novels I've read this year!
An unforgettable graphic memoir about a Mexican American boy's family and their adventure-filled road trip to bring their abuelito back from Mexico to live with them that National Book Award Finalist Victoria Jamieson calls "one of those books that kids will pass to their friends as soon as they have finished it."
Pedro Martin has grown up hearing stories about his abuelito-his legendary crime-fighting, grandfather who was once a part of the Mexican Revolution! But that doesn't mean Pedro is excited at the news that Abuelito is coming to live with their family. After all, Pedro has 8 brothers and…
