SOURCES ON THE MEXICAN REVOLUTION

Compiled by Sandra I. Enrquez

TeachingGuide
www.utep.edu/chtl 2010

Period Sources Azuela, Mariano. The Underdogs [Los de Abajo]: A Novel of the Mexican Revolution. London: Penguin Classics, 2008. http://www.pinkmonkey.com/dl/library1/digi508.pdf
The first novel of the revolution, written while Azuela was in exile in El Paso and published in the newspaper El Paso del Norte in 1915. The Underdogs reflects Azuelas disappointment in the movement of the revolution.

Martinez, Oscar J. Fragments of the Mexican Revolution: Personal Accounts from the Border. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1983.

About the Revolution in General Gilly, Adolfo. The Mexican Revolution: A People's History. New York: New Press, 2006.
In one of the few works in English that explores the revolution from almost all viewpoints, Gilly brings out the silenced voices of the revolution, especially the voices of peasants in the south that were fighting for land reform and class equality.

Katz, Friedrich. The Secret War in Mexico: Europe, the United States and the Mexican Revolution. Chicago: Chicago University Press, 1981.
Considered the best historian of the revolution, Katz places the story of the revolution in an international context by noting the importance of Mxico in World War I and focusing on why the U.S. Mxico border of the country was crucial for northern revolutionaries.

Horne, Gerald. Black and Brown: African Americans and the Mexican Revolution, 1910-1920 (American History and Culture Series). London: NYU Press, 2005.
Horne explores the relationships between African Americans, Anglos, Mexicans, and Mexican immigrants in the borderlands.

Jowett, Philip, and Alejandro De Quesada. The Mexican Revolution 1910-20 (Elite). Oxford: Osprey Publishing, 2006.
The complex conflicts and factions of the ten chaotic years of the revolution are almost fully explained in this small overview.

Smith, Michael M. "The Mexican Secret Service in the United States, 1910-1920." The Americas 59, no. 1 (2002): 65-85.
Smith shows how exiles, refugees, and other migrants of the Mexican Revolution became part of the Mexican Secret Service and spied, double spied, kept surveillance, intercepted smuggled arms.

"The Mexican Revolution 1910-1920." World History for the Relaxed Historian. http://www.emersonkent.com/wars_and_battles_in_history/mexican_revolution.htm. (accessed June 21, 2010).
This user friendly and interactive website provides accessible biographies, brief articles on the main battles, an in depth time line of events, photographs, videos, maps, and documents.

Vanderwood, Paul. The Power of God Against the Guns of Government: Religious Upheaval in Mexico at the Turn of the Nineteenth Century. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1998.
Vanderwood uses the Tomchic Revolt to illustrate the living conditions of the lower classes during the Porfiriato and the role of religious and spiritual movements in inspiring revolutionary activities in Northern Mxico. Teresita Urrea was a key player of the spiritual movement of the north, since the teenager was considered a saint and an inspiration for the revolts that followed.

About the Revolution and El Paso/Jurez Garca, Mario T. Desert Immigrants: The Mexicans of El Paso, 1880-1920 (The Yale Western Americana Series, 32). New Haven: Yale University Press, 1981.
The unconformities of the Porfiriato and the Mexican Revolution resulted in the migration of thousands of Mexicans to border towns, especially El Paso. Garca describes the lives of Mexican immigrants that came to El Paso at the turn of the century and the hardships faced, such as cheap labor, prejudice, and discrimination.

Harris, Charles III, and Louis R. Sadler. The Secret War in El Paso: Mexican Revolutionary Intrigue, 1906-1920. Albuquerque, NM: University of New Mexico Press, 2009.
Sadler and Harris precent the city of El Paso as a key city in the revolutionary struggle because of its clandestine operations, arms smuggling, and espionage.

________. "The Underside of the Mexican Revolution: El Paso, 1912." The Americas 39, no. 1 (1982): 69-83.
This article-length version of the above book focuses on how the Mexican Revolution spilled over the border in the forms of weapons, ammunition, refugees, and the establishment of revolutionary juntas. Without the United States territory, the revolution would not have been the same.

Martnez, Oscar J. Border Boom Town: Ciudad Juarez Since 1848. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1978.
Though the study concentrates in the economical development and growth of Ciudad Jurez, Martnez focuses on how Jurez and El Paso became linked and dependent economically on one another and how they became the Twin Cities. Through the last half of the nineteenth century the economies of both cities boomed with the arrival of the railroad, which would later benefit the economic growth of the revolution in the border. Martnez is able to blur the line of the border and illustrate how these two cities just have a physical border.

Romo, David Dorado. Ringside Seat to a Revolution: An Underground Cultural History of El Paso and Juarez, 1893-1923. El Paso: Cinco Puntos Press, 2005.
Romo illustrates how the Mexican Revolution impacted El Paso not only politically and economically, but also culturally. Journalist, radicals, photographers, musicians, film makers, business men, spectators, and smugglers all participated in one way or another. The importance of Ciudad Jurez for the revolutionaries made El Paso the most important American city of the Mexican Revolution, greatly shaping the identities of its Mexicans and Mexican Americans.