Waking the Dictator: Veracruz, the Struggle for Federalism and the Mexican Revolution, 1870-1927 is a study of federalism in late-nineteenth-century Veracruz State. It is also a politico-military analysis and an evaluation of social-revolutionary relations in the epoch of the Porfiriato and the Mexican Revolution. Koth interprets the Mexican Revolution across two axes: one is the heightened struggle for federalism, i.e., the conflict between the state of Veracruz and the central government; and the other is the class struggle that was brought into sharp relief by the violent social and...