Through personal experience and extensive travel in Mexico in the late 1900s, the author of “Barbarous Mexico” depicts the circumstances that will trigger the Mexican Revolution of 1910. The rampant, government sanctioned, widespread abuse of human rights in the tobacco and corn plantations of Central and Southeastern Mexico created an atmosphere where peasants, and the working class at large, had to choose between their lives and the revolution. Turner presents a gruesome picture of political and ethnic slavery; how President Diaz policies promoted, encouraged and maintained the system; how foreign actors sanctioned the practices; and ends with an encouraging vision of the Mexican people as a whole. (Summary by Mario Pineda)