Insurgent Mexico [Hardcover]

John Reed (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 1, 2007

American journalist John 'Jack' Reed writes, on the scene, describing the Mexican Revolution of 1914. He gives an excellent and realistic account of the Mexican Indians and peons that have suffered under a brutal dictatorship. He writes about the time he spent in Northern Mexico with Pancho Villa and the war in the desert. It was hard for him as a Gringo as most Americans had only gone to Mexico to pluner the enviornment. Read "The White Rose' by Bruno Traven and his other 'jungle' series books about the exploitation of Indian Mexican's. Many would say that Jack Reed took over from Jack London in his war reporting, since Jack had just died in 1914. Jack Reed's other famous book "Ten Days That Shook The World" is about the Red October (Boleshvik) Russian Revolution - the movie "Reds" by Warren Beaty is Jack Reed's story. A Collector's Edition.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 296 pages
• Publisher: Synergy International of the Americas, Ltd (July 1, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1934568317
• ISBN-13: 978-1934568316
• Product Dimensions: 8.6 x 5.6 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,364,910 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

21 of 24 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Classic Work on its Era, July 12, 1999

By 

El Cutachero (MD USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Insurgent Mexico (Paperback)

This book has been notorious since its publication in 1914. The author was a vagabond leftist reporter for the American radical press, and did not go to Mexico City riding in relative comfort on the press train accompanying the Division del Norte of General Francisco "Pancho" Villa during his successful Constitutionalist southward campaign against the Federalista forces of the usurper General Victoriano Huerta; he who had murdered president Madero and his vice president, and seized power in Mexico City in conjunction the forces of Zapata.
Instead, Reed, in accord with his common man leanings, while on campaign, lived among the "grunts", Mexican campesinos who made up the bulk of Villa's forces.
There are incisive pen portraits of the Constitutionalist leaders, descriptions of the wretched living conditions of the people, observations on the siege of Torréon, N.L.. and nearby Gomez Palacio, neighboring key strategic cities on the railroad south from Juarez to Mexico City.
This is not history or reporting but a collection of impressionistic and justifiably biased essays. Still very valuable for the feel of the times and has been translated into many languages. The author later went to Russia and wrote "Ten Days That Shook the World." (c.f.) about the October Revolution.

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Smoke Gets in Your Eyes, March 20, 2000

By 

John J. BAIN (Staunton, VA United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Insurgent Mexico (Paperback)

In this account of his adventures in the advance to Mexico City with Pancho Villa's armies, John Reed gives an excellent account of what it was like to have been there. Luckily enough for him, historians, and adventure lovers alike, he was on the winning side and survived to tell his tale. His tale is his aspect of the venture among the soldiers who fought the battles, rode the trains, suffred the hardships of civil war, and tasted the glow of victories won on the way to the capitol city. It's gritty, putrid, rough and tumble and the food isn't great but at the end you get a heck of a kick from surviving it all.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Do not buy the General Books edition!!!, September 22, 2010

By 

HalF40 - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Insurgent Mexico (Paperback)

Do yourself a favor and do not purchase Insurgent Mexico as published by General Books. Please look further since this is a great book and should be read as intended by the author, not as published by General Books. Entire sections of the book are missing, the spelling is atrocious and the typeface unreadable. According to General Books, "we have recreated this book from the original using Optical Character Recognition software to keep the cost of the book as low as possible. Therefore, could you please forgive any spelling mistakes, missing or extraneous characters that may have resulted from smudged or worn pages?" Evidently I am not forgiving enough, especially since the book is available at a reasonable cost from other publishers. Caveat emptor!