On 1 January 1994, just as the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) went into action, the Zapatista Army of National Liberation (EZLN, according to its Spanish acronym) took over four cities in the southern region of Chiapas, saying ‘enough is enough’, demanding the resignation of the President and the establishment of a temporary government. The Zapatistas cried out for freedom, democracy and justice citing their armed struggle as the only alternative for the indigenous people of Chiapas. The days that followed were filled with bullets flying between the EZLN and the Mexican army. After ten days however, a cease-fire was declared and the battle morphed into a media war. The Zapatistas had a media-savvy spokesperson; whilst the government benefited from their command over the national media.

Since then, much has been written about the Zapatista movement both nationally and internationally; in academic texts and news articles; in films and documentaries. But little has directly focused on the figure of Subcomandante Marcos. This is what Nick Henck tackles in Subcommander Marcos: The Man and the Mask, the first biography of this ‘revolutionary leader’ to be written in English. The book is divided into three parts (in order) to depict what Marcos himself has referred to as the three Marcoses: ‘Marcos of the past who has a past, Marcos of the Mountains before the First of January (1994), and post-January Marcos’.

In Part I ‘Rafael’, Henck focuses on the early years of Rafael Sebastián Guillén Vicente the man declared by president Ernesto Zedillo's government as being the ‘real’ Subcomandante Marcos – the man behind the mask. Henck's tone is somewhat messianic, not only because he regards Rafael as fulfilling a prophecy, but because the prophecy rests on such tenuous ground. Rafael fulfils the prophecy of becoming a revolutionary leader according to Henck – due to the fact that his year of birth coincides with the year in which Che Guevara and Fidel Castro established their first foco in Cuba. This is further reinforced by his witnessing (as an 11 year old) the student movements and massacre – of 1968; and experiencing the ruling political party's (PRI) high levels of repression and corruption. Moreover, Henck's use of Fran J. Sulloway's research into birth order affects on personality, to lead toward the conclusion that Rafael was ‘born to rebel’. Apparently, Marcos's birth order and his father's ‘Quixotic disposition’ are predictive events in his development as a guerrilla reader. I cannot help but to feel at times, that Henck is being more of an astrologer than a historian. Alarmingly, Henck devotes much attention to this and concludes that as a ‘laterborn’ with many siblings, Rafael ‘conforms to the revolutionary elite pattern’ of Marx, Lenin, Trotsky and Castro. This evolutionary rhetoric is further reiterated through Henck's assertion (with the help of Rejai and Phillips), that Rafael's revolutionary character is due to his being a ‘middle child … with many siblings … middle class [and] of mainstream variety in respect of ethnicity and religion …’ and so on. This biological essentialism is further confirmed in the closing lines of the book, in which Henck describes the revolutionary as a breed and Marcos, as the possible ‘next link’ in the evolutionary chain.

Part II ‘The Guerrilla’, outlines the period in which Rafael entered the Lacandon jungle and how he emerged, on the cusp of a rebellion, as Subcomandante Marcos. These years not only provided Marcos with the ideological basis and training for the 1994 insurgency, but also as Henck recounts, it was the time in which the EZLN first came to be established as a self-defence group to protect the peasants' lands, where Marcos and the other comandantes trained the indigenous people of Chiapas. We also learn here how the people of Chiapas were highly politicised and ripe for the establishment of a military organisation. This section also provides a detailed account of the expansion of the EZLN, the intertwining, mixing and shifting of its structure, and the personal growth of Marcos, during which Henck, true to form, continues his parallelisms between Marcos and Guevara. An exhaustive overview of both national and international social and political events frames its last few chapters and outlines the conditions for the impending uprising.

The final section of this biography opens with the taking of San Cristóbal de las Casas and Marcos' beginning as a ‘Star Spokesman’. Henck covers in detail the early moments of Marcos' becoming and the first few years of the movement (1994–1998). This includes moments such as: the unmasking of Marcos, the First Intercontinental encounter, Marcos' communiqués and the negotiations between the government and the EZLN. Unfortunately, very little attention is paid to the years from 1999 onwards when excitement surrounding the movement had begun to fade and Henck does little to suggest an explanation for this. So, for example, although he does make a special mention of the final caravan and march into Mexico City in 2001, as well as the struggle between Marcos and then president Vicente Fox to control the media; there is little analysis of this.

In the concluding chapters of the book, Henck describes the Zapatista's most recent move set forth by their Sixth Declaration from the Lacandon Jungle announcing a new shift in their politics and a Zapatista Other Campaign, with its aim of ‘shaking the country up from below’. This not only means a new ‘tour’, but also a new Subcommander Marcos, who will now be known as Delegate Zero. Henck picks up on this point and ends the book by alluding to Marcos as a hero, as the contemporary of old revolutionaries and as the future of new guerrillas and leaders.

A few words of the books approach. Nick Henck begins by framing his reading of Marcos in terms of what he symbolises rather than what he does, in a way similar to how Che Guevara is often considered. This is indeed a crucial and explicit thread of Henck's biographical work, and one which at points obfuscates his depiction of Marcos. Although Henck provides an exhaustive list of ‘facts’, and extensive archival research, he fails to really engage critically with his material. For example, the book opens with a collection of quotes which reference ‘the mask’, but there is no analysis of the significance of the mask. This is evident through Henck's interplay of ‘Marcos’ and ‘Sebastian’ which he uses at points as if they were one and the same. It is in the subtle nuances where the interesting character of Subcommander Marcos lies. And this is where Henck lacks lustre: what if Subcommander Marcos isn't Guillén Vicente? Is this even relevant? Who or what is Marcos? Taking Henck's point of view of the subcommander as ‘that which he symbolizes’, then his symbolism rests on being Subcommander Marcos and not Rafael Sebastian Guillén Vicente. In my own work with the Zapatista movement, when I was part of the caravan during the Other Campaign, a sense of mystery always surrounded Marcos. People were always questioning whether this was the ‘real’ Marcos; the one they had seen before had blue eyes, pale skin, was taller, bigger. What I came to realise was that he was a mask with a voice and with a pipe. Does it really matter who is behind that mask? This is a question Henck fails to ask.

This work is exhaustive and full of detail. Henck provides some interesting insights into Rafael's personal life and upbringing, collating interviews with former teachers and family members, which combine to provide a sense of early intellectual influences. Perhaps of most importance is his contribution to the link between Rafael and Che Guevara, one of the figures on which Marcos based himself. But this section ends in a fogged account of what happened to Rafael in the three years after leaving university and immersing himself in Chiapas. It is this unquestioning and uncritical reliance on facts and figures that troubled me. There are entire sections of the book attributed to a single set of authors (Oppenheimer, or De La Grange and Rico) which are digested and given to the reader as concrete facts. This simply stresses the lack of a critical standpoint. Crucially, this biography intends to reveal Marcos' becoming; his transition from Nicolas Guillén Vicente to Subcomandante Marcos. I am not sure how far this can be done without a critique of certain crucial events and discourses. This is not only because Marcos has intentionally controlled the media and what is written about him, but perhaps more importantly, because a biography should engage with, and deconstruct Marcos.

Clearly, revolutions and their leaders make up a vast and rich area of analysis. This biography adds albeit indirectly – to discussions about the ways in which the Zapatista movement has achieved and devised a new way of doing politics. Moreover, it serves to accentuate the role that Subcommander Marcos has had (placing him) as its leader. Although in his own words, Marcos is not a revolutionary leader but simply a spokesperson, Nick Henck's biography illustrates the importance of considering Marcos as a central figure in the transformation of the Zapatista movement. However, it fails to engage beyond a description of events; it fails to critique, to contrast and to really understand the Zapatista movement and its most mythical figure: Subcomandante Marcos.