This book is a case study of intellectuals in the Mexican Revolution, with specific reference to four men from San Luis Potosi, known in Mexico as "the cradle of the Revolution." These four men--engineer Camilo Arriaga, journalist Juan Sarabia, school teacher Librado Rivera, and student and lawyer Antonio Diaz Soto y Gama--played leadership roles in the "Precursor Movement," commonly defined as all political precedents of the Revolution of 1910-1917, including the manifestoes, strikes, and armed uprisings dating from these men's founding of San Luis Potosi's Club Liberal "Ponciano Arriaga" in 1900 to th outbreak of the Revolution in 1910.

Often described as the primary mover behind the Mexican Revolution, Ricardo Flores Magon was a liberal journalist working in Mexico in 1900. By 1910 and the Revolution, he was a radical anarchist in exile in the United States. Always a Rebel studies Magon's transformation during those crucial ten years, placing his changing ideas in the context of the liberal movement in Mexico, government suppression, the development of the Partido Liberal Mexicano in the United States, and thwarted attempts at revolution in 1906 and 1908. The first work to concentrate on Flores Magon himself, Always a Rebel makes clear the journalist's significance in Mexican history and explains modern Mexico's growing appreciation for him.

Beginning in 1954, Apr. issue lists studies in progress; Oct. issue, completed studies.