Government is the first installment of B. Traven's legendary Jungle Novels, a series of six books detailing the oppression and subsequent uprising of the Mexican Revolution.

The story follows Don Gabriel, a bureaucratic official in an isolated government outpost in a remote village. He comes to oversees the enslavement of Indians and ships them off to forced labor on the mahogany plantations owned by foreign investors. The impassionate but illiterate Indians and the corrupt political officials collide in a riveting conclusion in this first volume of the critically acclaimed but overlooked work from the late pseudonymous writer who has come "... to be recognized as one of the narrative masters of the twentieth century." (The New York Times)"