Empire Builders: Mexico

The Mexican Revolution

The final episode explores the Mexican Revolution in the early part of the last century - another hugely bloody event, but one which achieved the foundations of a modern Mexican state with the myriad cultures we know today. The episode also examines the roles of revolutionaries Pancho Villa, Emiliano Zapata, Venustiano Carranzas and Alvaro Obregon, who were all assassinated; the subsequent eruption of violent religious conflict called the Cristero War; and the nation-building of the Cardenas government that followed. The fusion of art and politics in the revolutionary era was epitomized by the iconic muralism developed by artists such as Diego Rivera.