Intervention!: The United States and the Mexican Revolution, 1913-1917

Aside from the 1846-1848 war between Mexico and the United States (about which Eisenhower wrote a superb account, So Far from God ), no event, he argues, has affected the relationship between the two countries more drastically than U.S. meddling during the Mexican Revolution, especially the 1914 seizure of Vera Cruz by the Atlantic Fleet and the 1916 punitive expedition to capture Pancho Villa. Eisenhower's version of the hunt for Villa, led by General John Pershing, is memorable for its depiction of Pershing's bold tactics and the contribution of the Tenth U.S. Cavalry, composed of African American ``Buffalo Soldiers.'' The book brings into high relief the revolution's brawling leaders and the tragedy of its widespread slaughter (more than a million Mexicans died in the civil warfare). Eisenhower interestingly contends that the revolution's most important figure was the usually slighted Venustiano Carranza, the self-styled First Chief of the constitutionalist movement, whose hostility toward the Collosus of the North was unswerving. Illustrated. (Nov.)