John Reed and the writing of revolution / Daniel W. Lehman.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Lehman, Daniel W. (Daniel Wayne), 1950-

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Reed, John, 1887-1920--Criticism and interpretation.

Reed, John.

Revolutionary literature, American--History and criticism.

Revolutionary literature, American.

Literature and society--United States--History--20th century.

Literature and society.

Social problems in literature.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (308 p.)

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Athens : Ohio University Press, c2002.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

"This is a work that I have been waiting twenty-five years to read. The first book-length study to seriously investigate, explicate, and analyze the prose of one of modern America's important yet neglected writers." --Robert A. Rosenstone, author of Romantic Revolutionary: A Biography of John ReedJohn Reed (1887-1920) is best known as the author of Ten Days That Shook the World and as champion of the communist movement in the United States. Still, Reed remains a writer almost systematically ignored by the literary critical establishment, even if alternately vilified and lionized by historians and by films like Warren Beatty's Reds. John Reed and the Writing of Revolution examines Reed's writing from a different critical perspective--one informed by a theoretical and practical understanding of literary nonfiction. In both politics and writing, John Reed defied fashion. In his short career, Reed transcended the traditional creative arts of fiction, poetry, and drama in favor of deeply researched histories composed with the cadence of fiction and the power of fact. Reed thereby alienated literary critics who had idealized timeless artistry against the rough-and-tumble world of historical details and political implications. Working from a close investigation of rare articles, manuscripts, and the Reed papers at Harvard as well as from Reed's published work, Daniel W. Lehman offers the first detailed literary study of the man who followed Pancho Villa into battle; wrote literary profiles of such characters as Henry Ford, William Jennings Bryan, and Billy Sunday; explicated the Byzantine factionalism of Eastern Europe; and witnessed the storming of the Winter Palace and the birth of Soviet Russia. Daniel W. Lehman is a professor of English at Ashland University in Ohio. He is the author of Matters of Fact: Reading Nonfiction over the Edge and is the co-editor of River Teeth: A Journal of Nonfiction Narrative.

Contents:

Intro

Illustrations

Acknowledgments

Introduction "A slice of intensified history"

John Reed as Literary Journalist

Fact and Fiction in John Reed's Tales

An Insurgent in Mexico

Reed against the Great War The Politics of Marketplace Journalism

Ten Days That Shook the World The Rising Tide of Revolution

Reed's Literary Legacy

Appendix

In the German Trenches" (April 1915)

Back of Billy Sunday" (May 1915)

Notes

Works Cited

Index.

Notes:

Bibliographic Level Mode of Issuance: Monograph

Includes bibliographical references (p. 277-284) and index.

ISBN:

0-8214-4108-6

OCLC:

191935601