Peter E. Newell
London: Freedom Press, London, 2005, £9.50, p/b
This is a book about the Mexican revolutionary, whose name has for the last few years been famously borrowed by the E.Z.L.N. warriors of southern Mexico. It suffers from a certain lack of proofreading, particularly of the Spanish-language text, which is a bit slipshod. It contains much interesting information about historic events which many of us know only via the Hollywood film Viva Zapata! Zapata is the book’s protagonist, but Newell’ attempts to give us Zapata’s context within revolutionary groupings, and in opposition to successive armies and governments. There is an appendix about Mexican attitudes to I Peter E. Newell wrote about the International Confederation of Trade Unions in Exile in Lobster 31. the land, which provides such useful background that it might be better positioned as a preface, or the book’s first chapter.
Walter Benjamin wrote, ‘the superficial inducement, the exotic, the picturesque has an effect only on the foreigner.’ While well intentioned, Newell’s book suffers somewhat from this trait: there’s a certain tendency to treat Mexicans as quaint, as when he writes of Zapata, ‘He was a fairly quiet man, who drunk [sic] less than most Mexicans.’ How does Newell know this? Has he taken a poll of Mexicans to learn their drinking habits? Was such a survey done in Morelos in the early twentieth century? Likewise, ‘the Mexican Indians ….existed in a condition of brutish misery.’ Why brutish’? What does this mean? In English writing about Mexico, the prose of modern writers often seems strained and overly aware.
This is in contrast to English-language reporters who watched the revolution unfold first hand, and wrote about it: Harry H. Dunn, whom Newell quotes, is simpler, more immediate, more interesting. Likewise, John Reed’s book Insurgent Mexico, dealing with Pancho Villa rather than Zapata, is livelier and more accessible than any subsequent work on the subject. This is a pity. Because, while Zapata has captured the popular and revolutionary imagination, Villa and his Division del Norte probably achieved more than Zapata and his Army of the South did; and lost more, as well. Newell, like other writers, mentions Villa’s failure to supply Zapata’s troops after their historic Mexico City meetings in December 1914. But he doesn’t account for it. Why did Villa do this? This failure to unite their armies led inexorably to the collapse of their revolutionary project, and to both men’s defeat. The encounter between Villa and Zapata, and subsequent events, deserves a good book itself.