The peasants known in popular memory as Jaramillistas were led by Rubén Jaramillo (1900-1962). An agrarian leader from Morelos who participated in the Mexican Revolution and fought under Zapata, Jaramillo later became an outspoken defender of the rural poor. The Jaramillistas were inspired by the legacy of the Zapatistas, the peasant army that fought for land and community autonomy with particular tenacity during the Revolution. Padilla examines the way that the Jaramillistas used the legacy of Zapatismo but also transformed, expanded, and updated it in dialogue with other national and international political movements.

The Jaramillistas fought persistently through legal channels for access to land, the means to work it, and sustainable prices for their products, but the Mexican government increasingly closed its doors to rural reform. The government ultimately responded with repression, pushing the Jaramillistas into armed struggle, and transforming their calls for local reform into a broader critique of capitalism. With Rural Resistance in the Land of Zapata, Padilla sheds new light on the decision to initiate armed struggle, women's challenges to patriarchal norms, and the ways that campesinos framed their demands in relation to national and international political developments. "A wonderful example of regional history that is embedded in the history of post-World War II Mexico. Students of agrarian movements, contemporary Mexican history, and the grand drama of peasant struggles over land and social justice will find this book obligatory reading."--Barry Carr, author of "Marxism and Communism in Twentieth-Century Mexico"

Tanalís Padilla is Assistant Professor of History at Dartmouth College.