structural:summarization
Interpreting the history of the revolution

There is a vast historiography on the Mexican Revolution, with many different interpretations of the history. Over time it has become more fragmented. There is consensus as to when the revolution began, that is in 1910, but there is no consensus when it ended. The Constitutionalists defeated their major rivals and called the constitutional convention that drafted the 1917 Constitution, but did not effectively control all regions. The year 1920 was the last successful military rebellion, bringing the northern revolutionary generals to power. According to Álvaro Matute, "By the time Obregón was sworn in as president on December 1, 1920, the armed stage of the Mexican Revolution was effectively over." The year 1940 saw revolutionary general and President Lázaro Cárdenas choose Manuel Avila Camacho, a moderate, to succeed him. A 1966 anthology by scholars of the revolution was entitled Is the Mexican Revolution Dead?. Historian Alan Knight has identified "orthodox" interpretation of the revolution as a monolithic, popular, nationalist revolution, while revisionism has focused on regional differences, and challenges its credentials revolution. One scholar classifies the conflict as a "great rebellion" rather than a revolution.

Major leaders of the Revolution have been the subject of biographies, including the martyred Francisco I. Madero. There are many biographies of Zapata and Villa, whose movements did not achieve power, along with studies of the presidential career of revolutionary general Lázaro Cárdenas. In recent years, biographies of the victorious northerners Carranza, Obregón, and Calles have reassessed their roles in the Revolution. Sonorans in the Mexican Revolution have not yet collectively been the subject of a major study.

Often studied as an event solely of Mexican history, or one also involving Mexico's northern neighbor, scholars now recognize that "From the beginning to the end, foreign activities figured crucially in the Revolution's course, not simple antagonism from the U.S. government, but complicated Euro-American imperialist rivalries, extremely intricate during the first world war." A key work illuminating the international aspects of the Revolution is Friedrich Katz 's 1981 work The Secret War in Mexico: Europe, the United States, and the Mexican Revolution.