Toward the end of 1913 John Reed was sent to cover the revolution in Mexico by Metropolitan, a widely read magazine whose writers included the leading muckrakers and reformers of the time. He was also commissioned as a correspondent by the New York World. Then twenty-six years of age, Reed had already won some fame as a journalist, having earlier that year reported the fierce silk workers strike in Paterson, New Jersey, led by the I.W.W. Reed's...