Caudillo and Peasant in the Mexican Revolution

Until quite recently, the Mexican Revolution was usually defined as an agrarian movement, as a peasant war, with Emiliano Zapata, leader of the villagers of Morelos, taken as its most typical figure. Yet this interpretation leaves many questions unanswered. It ignores the sheer diversity in both regional background and social goals of the revolutionary forces. It does not explain why the partition of the great estates and effective land distribution was delayed until the 1930s, almost two d...