Excerpt from Diaz: Master of Mexico The thrilling story of Porfirio Diaz has been told many times, yet always detached from Mexican history as a whole. The result has been highly confusing, usually misleading; and one has turned away from the tale feeling that modern Mexico has not been explained. In the raw attempt to apply the perfected institutions of Anglo-Saxon civilization to the descendants of the dusky races which inhabited Mexico before the discovery of America by Columbus, the Mexican statesmen of 1824 put the principles of democratic government to a terrible ordeal. Without keeping this experiment in mind, it is quite impossible to realize the profound significance of Diaz's extraordinary career and the importance of his work to all students of statecraft. He was summoned to power from a youth of poverty and obscurity by the necessities of his divided and demoralized country; and he is as truly a creation of the weakness of his people as the peaceful and progressive Mexico of to-day is largely the product of his strength and common sense. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.