Teru reviewed Insurgent Mexico by John Reed
Valuable account of an overlooked period of history
4 stars
Reed paints a very evocative image of the Mexican Revolution, working as what would nowadays be termed an embedded journalist among various groups of rebels and revolutionaries. He is there in the middle of the action during skirmishes and larger battles, following both smaller bands of peasants as well as the high command under Pancho Villa and Carranza.
His prose is delightful to read even a hundred years after the events depicted, combining strong and sometimes poetic descriptions of the vastness of the desert regions of the Mexican north with restraint when it comes to individuals. There is always a sense of motion and it is easy to see how this collection of dispatches electrified American readers at the time. There is a certain degree of sympathy towards his subjects but it remains, on the most part, objective—sometimes brutally so. There is no squeamishness in describing the crimes and shortfalls …
Reed paints a very evocative image of the Mexican Revolution, working as what would nowadays be termed an embedded journalist among various groups of rebels and revolutionaries. He is there in the middle of the action during skirmishes and larger battles, following both smaller bands of peasants as well as the high command under Pancho Villa and Carranza.
His prose is delightful to read even a hundred years after the events depicted, combining strong and sometimes poetic descriptions of the vastness of the desert regions of the Mexican north with restraint when it comes to individuals. There is always a sense of motion and it is easy to see how this collection of dispatches electrified American readers at the time. There is a certain degree of sympathy towards his subjects but it remains, on the most part, objective—sometimes brutally so. There is no squeamishness in describing the crimes and shortfalls of the people he spends time with and in that sense, it is similar to his galvanizing opus a few years later, Ten Days That Shook the World.
For anyone wishing to see the complex reasons for revolt against the conservative Mexican state and its dictators at the beginning of the 20th century, this is an engaging account that will not disappoint. The greater context and subtleties are not there, seeing as this is not a history but rather first-hand reports, but it brings the age and the ideals involved vividly into life even over a century after the events themselves.