Many of the faults of this book are confessed by the author. He states that he did not write about Wilson because he did not have the time or the ambition. He goes on to describe Wilson as a "...man truly dedicated to peace." Yet he goes on to characterize the interventions as "misguided and meddling." He did spend some time in San Antonio, Texas, thanks to his father, and so he says, "I have always felt a personal association with this episode in American history." He says that he "decided to study the conditions existing in Mexico during 1914 and 1916 in an effort to justify, or at least explain American actions." He obviously feels the need to justify. Then he insults the reader further by stating that he has left out a lot because "most accounts are not simple enough to be understood by the general reader." I had to keep reading just to see what other inexplicably asinine bits of wisdom he might have to offer. Read it if you must but check out other less "simple," more balanced and better researched accounts of this period. He relies too heavily on secondary and third hand sources and get some facts wrong as a result. I will admit that he tells a good story. ( )

A history of the Mexican Revolution from the perspective of President Woodrow Wilson. This is a great book with a focus on the American invasion and occupation of the city of Veracruz in 1914, and the American invasion of northern Mexico, where Wilson sent General Pershing to capture Pancho Villa after Villa raided the town of Columbus New Mexico in 1916. Eisenhower is a good story teller, and is able to make clear sense out of the complexities of the Revolution and America’s reactions. ( )

This is the story of the United States interventions into Mexico in the first two decades of the twentieth century. Eisenhower tells the story as a narrative without evaluation or moralizing and delivers a pleasantly readable history that moves along well without bogging down in details, yet does tell the story that at times goes down to the personal level of the participants. Most histories of this period confine themselves to the Pershing expedition, but this book also thoroughly examines the American seizure of Veracruz in 1914, probably one of the provocative and ill-considered military operations ever undertaken by the US against our neighbor to the south. Strongly recommended for those with interests in military and international history. ( )