This book seeks to tell the history of Mexico since the outbreak of the Revolution in 1910, setting it however in a wider historical context. It describes the period of civil war, the re-emergence of stable government and the consolidation in the 1930s of the so-called 'Institutionalized Revolution. It then covers in detail the exciting events of the last fifty years, the ebbing of the revolutionary impetus, the fall of the PRI in 2000 and the new regime, taking in on the way the "tequila crisis", the assassination of an Archbishop and a presidential candidate, the guerrilla outbreak in Chiapas, entry into NAFTA, the drug wars and the tension between national aspirations and the 'Washington consensus'. The structure is unusual. The book is written in a simple interlocking pattern of short sections, of four kinds: a basic historical narrative, sections dealing with topics deriving from the narrative, short biographical notes on prominent Mexicans and "voices" - brief, impressionistic collections of quotations representing successive historical periods.