John Reed is the kind of writer whose life eventually became a more intriguing story than his works, and it's easy to see why. Here, at the beginning of his career, the famously revolutionary reporter has managed to somehow embed himself in Pancho Villa's militia, sharing the dangers and hardships of an increasingly confusing war. The book, which takes the form of a series of impressionistic vignettes of marches, battles, scenes of Mexican peasant life, and wartime camaraderie, seems cobbled together from Reed's dispatches, written in sweepingly romantic and vivid language. "Insurgent Mexico" is at its strongest when Reed focuses on the stories, motivations, and relationships of the individual soldiers in Villa's army whom he befriends along the way. Show Where "Insurgent Mexico" falls short is wherever Reed insists on seeing the war around him through the lens of his own ideology and idealism. Reed tries so hard to turn Pancho Villa a complex, anachronistic, not-always-heroic figure into a paragon of proto-socialist revolutionary virtue. And he seems to refuse to see the narrative around him in any other terms. This is where the comparison to "Homage to Catalonia" fails: what makes that book great is the sub-story of how Orwell eventually becomes disillusioned with the ideals that led him into the conflict. Reed, on the other hand, seems stubbornly incapable of disillusionment. Reed's descriptions of Mexico also tend to range from the poetically romantic to the patronizingly romantic. If you can forgive him for that, you're left with his sense of earnest enthusiasm and energetic writing that makes for an enjoyable adventure. Sign into Goodreads to see if any of your friends have read Insurgent Mexico. Our servers are getting hit pretty hard right now. To continue shopping, enter the characters as they are shown in the image below. Type the characters you see in this image: Type characters Try different image © 1996-2014, Amazon.com, Inc. or its affiliates Journalist John Reed is most famous for his coverage of the Russian Revolution, but prior to that he was a war correspondent in the Mexican Revolution. Insurgent Mexico, published in 1914, collects 42 of Reed’s reports from Mexico. Reed’s writing is really a cut above typical journalism and often approaches the vivid imagery and emotional power of well-written historical fiction. By comparison, Jack London’s writings from Mexico at about the same time period seem wooden and tame, like the observations of a detached sociologist. Reed makes you feel like you’re on the ground with the soldiers. This is the book’s great strength, but it may also be its biggest fault. Though he excels at describing the gritty reality of camp life and the details of troop movements, Reed rarely steps back and takes a broader view of the war. As individual articles, most of the pieces included here are pretty strong, but when read together in book form there is a great deal of redundancy that gradually becomes more and more tedious as the book progresses. I have travelled extensively in Mexico and have an avid interest in the history of the nation, but this book managed to bore even me. When battles appear they are riveting, but they’re few and far between. Mostly, the book is a series of campfires around which the revolutionaries and peons chew the fat and party while waiting to be called into action. Reed traveled around northern Mexico where Pancho Villa and his Constitutionalist forces were fighting the Federal army, and he spent a great deal of time with Villa himself. Whenever Villa appears in the book, he lights up the page. Reed’s portrait of him is complex, colorful, and captivating. The President of the Constitutionalist movement, Venustiano Carranza, gets less coverage than Villa, but Reed provides an equally intriguing profile of this enigmatic leader. When it comes to the lesser generals, common soldiers, and the average peasants, however, Reed’s subjects are largely indistinguishable from one another. The view he offers of the Mexican people is the romanticized perspective one often associates with the Revolution. He emphasizes their joie de vivre with many scenes of drinking, dancing, singing, and gambling. He also revels in depictions of their fearlessness of death and nonchalance toward violence. These Mexicans gaily fire guns at one another over the most trifling matters. Reed’s intention is to entertain American readers by playing up the Mexicans’ devil-may-care attitude, but in doing so he unintentionally reinforces a stereotype that they’re all a bunch of dumb, third-world rednecks. To be fair, there are also quite a few passages where Reed poetically captures the sublime beauty of the landscape or the artistic richness of Mexican culture. Despite my quibbles about political correctness, my biggest complaint about the book is that it’s far duller than it should be. The final chapter is its absolute nadir—an interminably long description of a religious play that offers little insight into the nation in question or its people. Reed’s take on the Revolution is more sensationalized than the perspective one gets from reading works of Mexican fiction like Mariano Azuela’s Los de Abajo or Juan Rulfo’s The Burning Plain. Nevertheless, he does provide a first-hand account of Mexico during this tumultuous period, even if it is from an outsider’s perspective. Anyone with an ardent interest in the Mexican Revolution should read Insurgent Mexico—there are enough informative details to make it worth your while—but those with only a casual interest in the subject can skip it. If you liked this review, please follow the link below to Amazon.com and give me a “helpful” vote. Thank you. What is Insurgent Mexico John Reed about?Published in 1914, it is ostensibly the reportage of the months that the journalist John Reed spent with Pancho Villa's revolutionary guerrillas as they advanced through the desert to Mexico's capital. But it is more travelogue than journalism, more loving portrait of a people and a country than war reporting. When was John Reed in Mexico?“At some point between late December 1913 and early January 1914 American journalist John Reed succeeded in getting across the border at Presidio, Texas, into Mexico. What led to the Mexican revolution?The economic policies of Porfirio Díaz, unequal distribution of land, deeply entrenched economic inequality, and undemocratic institutions were the major causes of the revolution. |
