American Perception of the 1917 Russian Revolution as Seen through the Eyes of The New York Times

Why should anyone endeavor to write another study on such a controversial topic as the Russian Revolution? What more is to be said about this emotionally charged epoch in history that has not been said before? The study of Russian history, specifically of the Soviet period, has become, so it seems, so specialized that even if new interpretations have been formulated of existing evidence much of it is relegated to scholarly journals to be consumed by historians at their leisure. While scholars argue about the meaning of the Russian Revolution and about its legacy for Soviet society, laymen are subject to the dubious polemics of politicians who take history a la carte in order to justify the righteousness of one nation over an other. One need only look through the many scholarly journals dealing with Russian history and related subjects to find new and exciting ideas beyond the grasp of ordinary people who rely solely on newspapers, or other media forms, as their only means of perceiving the world. It is precisely this reason that in choosing a topic for my honors thesis, I moved away from the specialized argumentation of scholars and focused on how historical events were reported and interpreted to a population of reasonably intelligent people. These historical events were served to the population of a nation and digested. They nourished many perceptions that today are still considered by some ironclad premises of immutable truth. On close examination these premises are inaccurate at best. It is a wonder that such misinterpretation could have survived