Jeff Guinn, an award-winning investigative reporter and author of a number of noteworthy historical sagas, has penned a riveting account of the troubled relationship between Mexico and her northern neighbor over a wide span of years.

He begins with the alleged raid by Pancho Villa on the border town of Columbus, New Mexico, and the Punitive Expedition of 1916 that brought the U.S. and Mexico to the brink of all-out war.

Guinn sticks with the generally accepted version that Villa launched the attack in the hope U.S. troops would cross the border in retaliation, thus derailing relations between the two countries and drawing support away from President Venustiano Carranza and to the revolutionaries trying to topple his regime. Villa did take credit for the raid, but he had also made claims about other matters when it suited his purpose. Alternate theories purport Carranza initiated the raid in hope of inspiring U.S. wrath against his enemies. And it's also a fact Germany was involved in efforts to keep the U.S. busy and out of the war in Europe, providing offers of weapons and other help to both Carranza and Villa.

Despite diplomatic efforts, tempers were roused and General John J. "Black Jack" Pershing was authorized to launch the nine-month invasion deep into Mexican territory in pursuit of Villa and his forces. For the first time in history the U.S. employed gasoline-powered vehicles and aircraft in a military exercise outside the country -- resources that proved of little value given the ruggedness and expanse of the territory they traversed.

This portion of the book is interesting and well-written. Guinn takes it several steps further, though, going into the earlier history of U.S.-Mexican relations and exploring such issues as Mexico's struggle to create a viable democratic government, U.S. expansionism and appropriation of Mexican territory in the aftermath of the war of 1846-47, the conniving of U.S. representatives and business interests, the vigilante actions of the Texas Rangers and much more.

He paints vibrant biographical sketches of the various players, including Woodrow Wilson, Villa, Carranza, Pershing, Francisco Madero, Porfirio Diaz, Victoriano Huerta, General Frederick Funston, General George Patton and others.

Often, people look at history as simply something that happened in the past. They forget those things of the past often have repercussions felt long into the future. We, today, are still experiencing repercussions of events that began nearly 200 years ago on the U.S-Mexican border and have yet to resolve them.