Book Review

Mark Cronlund Anderson traces Francisco "Pancho" Villa's rapid rise from relative obscurity to considerable notoriety in the mass media during an eighteen-month period of the Mexican Revolution, from early 1914 to the spring of 1915. The author argues that Villa's highly favorable media coverage was no accident. Implementing a carefully planned propaganda campaign, Villa and his advisers used every fair—and unfair—method at their disposal to shape Villa's image both in Mexico and, perhaps more important, in the United States. Reporters were charmed, bribed, cajoled, and put on Villa's payroll to assure a positive press that would, in turn, enhance the general's political power and international standing in contrast to his revolutionary rivals, especially Victoriano Huerta and Venustiano Carranza.

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Anderson measures the success of Villa's carefully manipulated media campaign by considering not only the general's press coverage (from editorials to political cartoons) but also United States diplomatic correspondence that strongly influenced United States foreign policy making in Mexico. In ways that would have made a modern spin doctor proud, Villa managed to promote himself as an ideal American warrior-hero, complete with courage, self-reliance, strength, and reliability. Many Americans admired those traits and, hence, admired Villa.

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