Three Revolutions: Professor Simon Hall on his new book

I was initially drawn to the three American journalists, John Reed, Edgar Snow, and Herbert Matthews. All three were extraordinary, larger than life characters, who also produced eyewitness accounts that did not just record history, but also helped to change it.

The role of contingency. Lenin could very easily have been denied entry to Russia in April 1917, and both Mao and Fidel came perilously close to being shot well before they became famous revolutionaries. 

Helen Foster Snow — Edgar’s first wife, and a journalist herself — played a really influential role in shaping the final version of Red Star Over China (Edgar’s landmark account of the Chinese Communists). In particular, she persuaded him to include, virtually unedited, Mao’s lengthy autobiography (as told to Snow), rather than — as Edgar wanted — summarising it. As she told him: ‘Why, this is like having George Washington at Valley Forge tell the story of the Revolution.’

That a commitment to impassioned reporting and a commitment to honest journalism do not have to be mutually exclusive.