| The combination of disciplines makes this work unique in the historiography of the Mexican Revolution, for none other brings together political, cultural, economic, and military approaches. The initial discussion on martial traditions draws heavily and specifically from Frederick Jackson Turner's thesis that the American frontier produced variations on regional culture, while naval theory differentiates continental and maritime powers, drawing on the Annals school of history that demonstrates the effects of geography on culture. Economics enters the narrative early through the concept of the military-agricultural complex as a model for frontier defense, development, and expansion. The impact of battlefield tactics and operations undertaken by various armies during the Mexican Revolution over the 1910-1915 timeframe in producing strategic outcomes highlights the cogence of military science. In response to military turn of events the various factions swore, broke, and remade alliances and allegiances in the hopes of achieving a favorable military and hence political end result. They also scrambled for resources as a matter of military economy. The term "military economy" has two meanings, first as a measure of efficiency in conducting war and second as a marketplace where factions compete for scarce resources to win the state's monopoly on violence. The pursuit of financing for their enterprises led the armies to adopt differing approaches to fiscal and monetary policy and in doing so they encroached on the macro economy. Military intrusion into the broader economy threatened militarism. That the Constitutionalists blunted this menace numbers as the greatest and most enduring success of the Mexican Revolution. |
