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Reed, John (1887–1920) By McGowan, Patrick
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Born in Portland, Oregon in 1887, John Reed was a radical American journalist known for his depictions of early twentieth-century labour politics and political revolutions. Reed’s influential works include Insurgent Mexico (1914), an impressionistic account of the Mexican Revolution which draws upon Reed’s experiences as a reporter embedded with revolutionary general Pancho Villa, and Ten Days That Shook the World (1919), a firsthand portrait of Russia’s Bolshevik Revolution of 1917. Both books, like Reed’s shorter pieces published in The Masses and The Metropolitan, utilized objective reporting, first person perspective, and literary embellishment.