Ten Days that Shook the World

Title: Ten Days that Shook the World

Author: John Reed

Pages: 351

Genre: Non-Fiction, History

Grade: B

Synopsis: John Reed was an American journalist living in Saint Petersburg (Petrograd) during the height of the Russian Revolution in 1917 when Lenin and the Bolsheviks seized power and setup their own government.  The writing is not flashy or embellished as his intent was to simply convey the timeline and a description of what was happening during the height of the revolution. Incredibly, almost everything that Reed reported on in this book was based on his own account.  He was able to sit in on the meetings, congresses in addition to visiting the front of the battle and meeting with people involved on both sides. Side note: John Reed died in 1920 of typhus and is one of only 3 Americans buried in the Kremlin Wall Necropolis.

My Review: To be perfectly honest, I'm pretty proud of myself for making it through this book.  I don't think that I've read a book of this substance since college. If there is a university class on the Russian Revolution, this would be the textbook. Even though a substantial chunk of the book was well over my head, I found that I enjoyed it the more I got into it. It was more difficult to read this book in small chunks and I had to be sure to only read in places of  silence and without distractions. Normally I have no problem reading with music on in the background, but this one was too meaty.