Emiliano Zapata began a new existence after being assassinated on April 10, 1919 at the Chinameca hacienda. Although many have doubted that the betrayal of which he was truly subjected cost him his life - he is said to have sent a double to the gallows, who fled to Arabia, who wanders like a ghost through the mountainous areas of Morelos - what is a fact is that after the death of the maximum agrarian leader of the Revolution, a myth with political, social, artistic and cultural ramifications developed in Mexico and beyond its borders. In traversing Zapata's posthumous trajectory, Samuel Brunk reveals here the discursive and ceremonial mechanisms with which the State has wished to appropriate the image of Zapata and leads us to listen to the corridos on the life and death of Emiliano, to look on with astonishment the interpretations of Marlon Brando and Alejandro Fernández on the big screen, to leaf through the press and the primary textbooks, to contemplate the murals of Diego Rivera and the painting of Alberto Gironella, to delve into the biographies - both the denigratory and the hagiographic—, to travel to Chiapas and the United States, to understand how, throughout the Mexican 20th century, the cult of a hero that shared traits with Jesus Christ, Quetzalcoatl and other Mesoamerican deities was conceived. After reading these pages, it is clear that, in his own way, Zapata is still alive.

"Brunk finds in Zapata's ubiquitous presence an opportunity to explore the social and political history of Mexico in the 20th century and thus offer some revelations on very complex issues such as hegemony and Mexican national identity."
Alexander Dawson, State University of New York

"A fascinating series of vignettes that reveal the many ways in which Zapata's image was revered and violated during the past century. Brunk interweaves the smallest details and the largest prints of Zapata's legacy in a minute and captivating way. "
Paul J. Vanderwood, author of Rural Mexicans