To Die on Your Feet

Amidst the pantheon of Mexican heroes, writer-revolutionary Praxedis Guerrero (1882-1910) is a man often overlooked. His importance to a full understanding of Mexico's turbulent pre-revolutionary years, however, is undeniable. To Die on Your Feet examines Guerrero's involvement in a broad anarchist movement - led in part by Ricardo Flores Magon - that helped to provoke the Mexican Revolution against the government of Porfirio Diaz. Self-schooled in the bucolic teachings of Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Pierre-Joseph Proudhon and William Godwin, as well as the more activist theories of Mikhail Bakunin and Pyotr Kropotkin, Guerrero combined thinking and doing. Though raised as the son of a wealthy hacendado, he was a champion of the downtrodden. Guerrero despised greed, ignorance and despotism and used his pen as his primary weapon against such oppressions, writing incendiary essays for three liberal newspapers, Revolucion, Regeneracion and Punto Rojo in which he promoted socialist and anarchist ideals. People on both sides of the Mexico-United States border took note. Though he considered himself a writer, he was not adverse to direct action. He joined the ranks of the revoltoso martyrs when he was killed in guerrilla action against federal forces at Janos, Chihuahua, in 1910. He died on his feet.