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The fulcrum of Paul Eiss' provocative volume-—and the concept that facilitates his interwoven understanding of community, popular politics, state formation, indigenous identity and memory-—is his interrogation of the term "el pueblo." Previously scholars across a range of disciplines have privileged one or another of its connotations, emphasizing either a particular village or place; or focusing more abstractly on the notion of local or broader community; or equating the term with popular politics (as in, most famously, the slogan "el pueblo unido jamás será vencido!").

In his acclaimed synthesis of the Mexican Revolution of 1910, Alan Knight observed that "the social bandit's career in Academe has somewhat paralleled his life under the greenwood tree. Introduced by Professor Hobsbawm, he was initially welcomed, even feted, and he put in many appearances in academic company; but then (inevitably, after such uncritical acceptance) some academics grew leery, and the recent trend-especially among experts—has been to qualify, de-emphasise and even deny his role."

It is a paradox that historians of the Mexican Revolution have paid so little attention to the complex social phenomenon that has come to be called caciquismo. Caciques—for the moment, let us identify them as local bosses, strongmen, or chiefs—were such a plague on the Mexican rural populace during the porfiriato that "Mueran los caciques!" took its place alongside "Tierra y libertad!" and "México para los mexicanos!" as the central rallying cries of the 1910 Revolution. Moreover, it is difficult to refute John Womack's proposition that to capture the intent of Madero's slogan "Sufragio efectivo y no reelección," still the first commandment of the Institutionalized Revolution, it should properly be rendered: "A real vote and no boss rule." Now, though only recently, a steadily increasing number of studies at the regional level by historians and social scientists is beginning to document that the epic Revolution found its energies in the small towns and villages and that the millions who fought, although primarily moved by the promise of land reform, were more immediately preoccupied with the related problem of breaking the political and economic stranglehold of the local power-brokers.