Career and Life of Porfirio Diaz

One critical account of Diaz divides his life into four parts. The first is from birth to age 24, when he joined the army to fight the ruling dictator, Antonio Lopex de Santa Anna, and his regime in the 1850s. The second period involves his important position as an officer in the army that defeated Emperor Maximilian of Mexico in 1867. The third period covers the years between 1867--when Diaz was 37--and 1876, ending with his rise to power through force. The final and longest division is the period of his power, beginning in 1876 and ending in 1911. This research will focus primarily on this fourth period of his life.

Diaz has always been difficult to describe as a liberal, a conservative, a reactionary or anything else since his politics were often dictated by the needs of the moment and his personal ambition. As a supporter of

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worse." Since the army was the basis for the success of his regime, Diaz made great efforts to reform it. It is reported that he succeeded only partially. The privileges of the great families and the vast poverty of the conscript privates (who deserted whenever they saw a chance of doing so successfully) almost guaranteed an inadequate army, at least insofar as anything other than putting down peasant revolts was concerned. The vital core of "Porfirian" officers, trained in the years after 1876, was judged to have been very impractical, but it was sandwiched between incompetence from above and surliness in the ranks below. The result was military inefficiency, even though the army kept Diaz in power. This rule of "take from the poor and give to the rich" was achieved in a variety of ways. First, Diaz made no attempt to fight the Catholic Church and left it in charge of educating the poor people in Mexico, who were thus taught from childhood that obedience to the law and obedience to God were very similar. In addition, large concessions were made to foreign mining interests and other corporations. These concessions meant that the natural resources of all Mexican people were being sold to foreigners, with the profits g
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Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 2311
Approximate Pages = 9 (250 words per page)

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