Customer Reviews

Insurgent Mexico (Sourcebook on Asbestos Diseases, Vol 14)

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

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.

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.

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!

this book lives up to its underground billing as we are drawn into the Mexican Revolution in a way that makes us seem to be riding with Pancho Villa and living with the villagers along the way. It reminds one of a Hemingway report except with added detail. The only complaint is that it is not longer for it leaves you the urge to read more Reed.

This is the first time I have felt so moved to post a review and it's not because of the content of the book, but rather the shameful lack of care shown by the publishers. I have tried to find an address for General Books LLC but have come up with nothing. Therefore I will post my immense disappointment here - and urge readers to look elsewhere for this book, which is a great read, judging by the blocks of text that managed to escape a mauling.

From the first chapter Insurgent Mexico has chunks of text missing or joined or following on to the next chapter. For some inexplicable reason the type changes to italics from page 42 onwards. In fact the book is so shabbily put together it's almost laughable and if I didn't need to read the book now, for research purposes, I would return it in a heartbeat.

Sadly, in my impatience, I cancelled a previous order for Insurgent Mexico published by International Publishers because the order kept getting delayed. If anyone else is looking to buy this book I would advise them to show a little more perseverence than I did.

This book completely spoils the pleasure of reading John Reed: every other word is a misprint; some phrases break into the margin of the page and end into nowhere; almost all chapters end in the middle of a sentence, which is continued (in the lucky cases) in the next chapter. Even the "look inside" pages are fakes: they are the pdf of an old edition, from which the present one was, with utter incompetence, re-typed. This is not a book, this is a distillation of desperate incompetence and blatant brazenness.

As everyone knows, John Reed was a lefty journalist who first covered the Mexican Revolution and then the Russian Revolution. This book is a story of his experiences with the Constitutionalists of the Mexican Revolution. This book is biased, as it paints the rebels in glowing terms. I am not so sure of that. As everybody knows, Villa was a cold blooded killer, as shown by his raid of Columbus, New Mexico. Fierro, Urbina, and others are also in these stories. So, even though the Huerta government was very bloody, the Constitutionalists were as much the same. Both committed heinous crimes, although Reed glosses over that. Toward the end of the book, the writing became less exciting and more familiar.

This is a nice read, and I enjoyed it. Fortunately I have read other accounts of the Mexican Revolution, so I know that Reed overlooked some of the crimes of the Constitutionalists. Villa and Carranza were not angels, and their exploits show that they used many of the same excesses as Huerta. However the book is an enjoyable read.

This book was written over 80 years ago, so as military journalism it is quite dated. However, the author's portraits of people and places are so vivid that the characters and events seem to come alive. The author displays a novelist's talent for description. It is a very sympathetic portrait of Pancho Villa. I don't know how historically accurate it is, but it is certainly interesting reading.