…Villa was an outlaw for twenty-two years. When he was only a boy of sixteen, … he killed a government official… that in itself would not have outlawed him long in Mexico, where human life is cheap; but once a refugee he committed the unpardonable crime of stealing cattle from the rich hacendados. And from that time to the outbreak of the Madero revolution, the Mexican government had a price on his head. -John Reed, Insurgent Mexico, (1914)

American journalist John Reed was sent in 1913 to Mexico by the Metropolitan Magazine to cover the Mexican Revolution, an armed struggle from 1910 to 1920 that had a major impact on Mexican culture and government. While reporting on Pancho Villa, a former bandit, who became a Mexican revolutionary general and one of the most prominent figures of the Mexican Revolution, Reed established his national reputation as a war correspondent.

Reed’s articles were published in his book Insurgent Mexico (1914), which offers a fascinating read for anyone interested in the Mexican Revolution and its history.