Books by Thomas Benjamin

Chiapas, a state in southern Mexico, burst into international news in January 1994 when insurgents, given a voice in the communiques of Subcomandante Marcos, took control of the capital and other key towns. Worldwide, people wanted to know the answer to one question: why had revolutionaries taken over a Mexican state? No other study of Chiapas answers that question as thoroughly as does this book.

This pathfinding book shows how Mexicans from 1910 through the 1950s interpreted the revolution, tried to make sense of it, and, through collective memory, myth-making, and history writing, invented an idea called "la Revolucion."