Rating: 
Summary: Good introduction to the beginning of a 75-year tragedy
Review: The world was certainly changed by these days that shook the world; Reed is accurate about that. He also does a solid job of explaining the background to the Bolsheviks' power grab from the corrupt "ancien regime." This is a good book for those of us interested in how a perverted, twisted, and destructive ideology was able to take control of a great nation and manipulate the levers of power to the tune of 37 million deaths over its lifespan. Now that communism (at least from the semi-peripheral states such as Russia) has been consigned to the dustbin of history, it is well worth a re-read.
Rating: 
Summary: Wonderful book
Review: This book is great not only for papers and reports on Russia's Revolutions, but also for readers simply interested in the story of the Bolsheviki. It reads like a great novel, and there are plenty of helpful notes and explanations to help the less knowledgeable reader with this topic in history. Reed shows a lot from the point of view of the Bolsheviki. A very fascinating twist that sets it apart from other books on the subject. First-hand experience gives Reed great subject matter and accuracy. Pick this one up!
Rating: 
Summary: Compelling Eyewitness Account of The Russian Revolution
Review: This is a most powerfully written American radical journalist's eyewitness account of the Bolshevik seizure of power--recording the excitement of the October days and the beginnings of John Reed's own revolutionary disillusionment.Ten Days That Shook the World is the classic account of the Russian Revolution of November 1917 by a western journalist and has been admired worldwide since its first publication in 1919. Lenin endorsed it as "a truthful and most vivid exposition of the events so significant to the comprehension of what really is the Proletarian Revolution." Already based in Europe and sympathetic to the cause of the Russian Revolution, Reed was able to observe dispassionately exactly what was going on and to find out not only what the Bolshevik leaders were doing, but to move among those on the streets and note experiences of the masses of ordinary people. Witnessing first-hand the day-to-day events of the Revolution, he captures in vivid and graphic detail the atmosphere of that time. An extraordinary document of history in the making, this newer edition is the first with contemporary photographs, while a new introduction by Harold Shukman, University Lecturer in Modern Russian History at Oxford University, sets the work in context. Published to commemorate the 80th anniversary of the Russian Revolution, this illustrated edition will appeal to anyone interested in modern history. And quite possibly re-ignite a political polemic. Warren Beatty dared to make the film Reds, which gives us a poignantly epic visual view of John Reed, his life, his loves and his fierce beliefs as read in Ten Days That Shook The World.
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