Most Americans regarded Antonio L?pez de Santa Anna as a villain for his brutal assault on the Alamo in 1836. What many donÆt realize is that few individuals have caused their own nation greater pain. He lost one-third of MexicoÆs territory in wars, sold almost another 30,000 square miles while pocketing most of the money, and repeatedly bankrupted the nation. His extravagance was legendary, as testified to by the burial of his amputated leg at the nationÆs great expense. He served as his cou...

Starting with twenty-eight followers, Francisco Pancho Villa rose out of banditry to become a dynamic strategist who mastered the tactical use of a diverse array of weapons, including modern railroads and cavalry, to contest control of Mexico. In his early days as a brigand, the peasantry idolized him because he often gave them the largesse of his raids on the wealthy haciendas. His military career began in 1910 during the Mexican Revolution, and by the time of his defeat at the Battle of Cel...

The leading historian on the Spanish Civil War reveals the truth about one of the most horrifying events of the twentieth century – the destruction of Guernica.Guernica, a quiet market town in the Basque region of northern Spain. On Monday 26 April 1937, as the Spanish Civil War raged, the market square was busy with farmers and townspeople. Just before five o’clock in the afternoon the sky darkened as the Luftwaffe swarmed overhead and began an unrelentingly vicious assault, the f...

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 t...

A 354 page, complete History of Mexico with historic pictures. An easy read to learn the incredible history of the Republic from the Conquest until Today. The places, events, and the characters that played out their roles in one of the bloodiest histories ever recorded. Interspersed throughout are accounts of events taking place in the U.S. and the rest of the world simultaniously to give one a sense of the time.

The Chaco War was massive territorial war between Bolivia and Paraguay, which cost almost a 100,000 lives.An old fashioned territorial dispute, the contested area was the Gran Chaco Boreal, a 100,000-square mile region of swamp, jungle and pampas with isolated fortified towns. The wilderness terrain made operations difficult and costly as the war see-sawed between the two sides.Bolivian troops, under the command of a German general, Hans von Kundt, had earl...

By the spring of 1936 an armed clash was imminent between the forces of Spain's extreme Left and extreme Right.Viewed largely as a confrontation between democracy and fascism, the resulting civil war proved to be of enormous international significance. Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy intervened to assist General Franco, while the Soviet Union came to the aid of the Republican forces.This book explains the background to the war and charts the course of the ne...

On March 9, 1916, troops under the command of Pancho Villa attacked Columbus, New Mexico and its local detachment of the US 13th Cavalry Regiment, killing 18 people and burning the town. Six days later, on orders from President Woodrow Wilson, General John J. 'Black Jack' Pershing led an expeditionary force of 4,800 men into Mexico to capture Villa. What followed was a series of skirmishes, battles, and chases through the wild and uncharted Mexican countryside. While the Americans failed i...

A premier volume in Oxford's Pivotal Moments in World History series, Americanos offers an engagingly written, compact history of the Latin American wars of independence. Proceeding almost cinematically, scene by vivid scene, John Charles Chasteen introduces the reader to lead players, basic concepts, key events, and dominant trends, braided together in a single, taut narrative. He vividly depicts the individuals and events of those tumultuous years, capturing the gathering forces for inde...

This book narrates the story of the 1910 Mexican Revolution. It was a period of rebellion and ruthless violence. It reports the major events that shaped a nation’s character. It follows the lives of the major players of Heliosian power who led the revolution and sacrificed their lives for it. Parts of the book are fictionalized for dramatic purposes. These are in italics. Finally the story raises the moral question “How is it that ordinary men find the courage to put their lives on the lin...

Doroteo Arango—much better known as "Pancho Villa"—was one of the revolutionary generals during Mexico's turbulent times in the early 1900s. Villa was a train robber, a cattle thief, and a murderer, yet today he is revered by Mexicans and Americans for his accomplishments, and roads and neighborhoods in Mexico bear his name.|| Pancho Villa: A Biography provides a compelling life story full of adventure, the events of which helped define the course of modern Mexico. Through the lens of ...

The first serious biography of Francisco Solano López in English for decades, this richly researched book tells the dramatic story of Paraguay's most notorious ruler. Despite the heroic stature he gained after his death, López was a monumentally flawed leader who made the disastrous decisions in 1864 and 1865 to invade Paraguay's powerful neighbors, Brazil and Argentina, initiating the most devastating interstate conflict in South American history. Drawing on a trove of primary sources, Ja...