Jones based the book on interviews he conducted during eight trips into guerrilla-held "red zones" in the Philippines and documents obtained from official and underground sources.
[6] In a three-page Atlantic Monthly review of Red Revolution in September 1989, James Fallows noted the rare access that Jones had gained in penetrating the communist underground and his groundbreaking reporting on the revolutionary movement’s development and operations.
[7] The New York Times Sunday Book Review called Red Revolution "a volume of painstaking detail that will long serve as an authoritative reference for Philippine specialists and students of modern guerrilla movements.
"[9] Jones was a finalist for a Pulitzer Prize in 1992 for a series of articles he wrote about deaths and suffering that resulted from the lack of healthcare access in rural Arkansas.
In the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks on the United States in 2001, Jones reported from Pakistan and Afghanistan on the U.S. military response, the pursuit of Osama bin Laden at Tora Bora, and the poverty and hardship confronting the Afghan people after decades of war.
wrote: "The result of Jones’ efforts is a classic that echoes the passion of Erich Maria Remarque’s World War I novel, "All Quiet on the Western Front"; Leon Uris’ "Battle Cry," a World War II classic; and the intensity of the 1992 book about the Vietnam War—"We Were Soldiers Once … and Young" by Lieutenant General Harold G. Moore, U.S. Army (Ret.)