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Confederates in the Attic: Dispatches from the Unfinished Civil War
Unavailable
Confederates in the Attic: Dispatches from the Unfinished Civil War
Unavailable
Confederates in the Attic: Dispatches from the Unfinished Civil War
Audiobook (abridged)6 hours

Confederates in the Attic: Dispatches from the Unfinished Civil War

Written by Tony Horwitz

Narrated by Michael Beck

Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

4/5

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Currently unavailable

Currently unavailable

About this audiobook

When prize-winning war correspondent Tony Horwitz leaves the battlefields of Bosnia and the Middle East for a peaceful corner of the Blue Ridge Mountains, he thinks he's put war zones behind him. But awakened one morning by the crackle of musket fire, Horwitz starts filing front-line dispatches again this time from a war close to home, and to his own heart.

Propelled by his boyhood passion for the Civil War, Horwitz embarks on a search for places and people still held in thrall by America's greatest conflict. The result is an adventure into the soul of the unvanquished South, where the ghosts of the Lost Cause are resurrected through ritual and remembrance.

In Virginia, Horwitz joins a band of 'hardcore' reenactors who crash-diet to achieve the hollow-eyed look of starved Confederates; in Kentucky, he witnesses Klan rallies and calls for race war sparked by the killing of a white man who brandishes a rebel flag; at Andersonville, he finds that the prison's commander, executed as a war criminal, is now exalted as a martyr and hero; and in the book's climax, Horwitz takes a marathon trek from Antietam to Gettysburg to Appomattox in the company of Robert Lee Hodge, an eccentric pilgrim who dubs their odyssey the 'Civil Wargasm.'

Written with Horwitz's signature blend of humor, history, and hard-nosed journalism, Confederates in the Attic brings alive old battlefields and new ones 'classrooms, courts, country bars' where the past and the present collide, often in explosive ways. Poignant and picaresque, haunting and hilarious, it speaks to anyone who has ever felt drawn to the mythic South and to the dark romance of the Civil War.

LanguageEnglish
Release dateJul 4, 2000
ISBN9780553753158
Unavailable
Confederates in the Attic: Dispatches from the Unfinished Civil War
Author

Tony Horwitz

Tony Horwitz is a native of Washington, D.C., and a graduate of Brown University and Columbia University's Graduate School of Journalism. He worked for many years as a reporter, first in Indiana and then during a decade overseas in Australia, Europe, Africa, and the Middle East, mostly covering wars and conflicts as a foreign correspondent for The Wall Street Journal. After returning to the States, he won the Pulitzer Prize for national reporting and worked as a staff writer for The New Yorker before becoming a full-time author. His books include Midnight Rising, A Voyage Long and Strange, Blue Latitudes, a national and New York Times bestseller about the Pacific voyages of Captain James Cook, Baghdad Without a Map, a national bestseller about the Middle East, and Confederates in the Attic, a national and New York Times bestseller about the Civil War. Horwitz has been a fellow at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University and a visiting scholar at the John Carter Brown Library at Brown University. He lives with his wife, Geraldine Brooks, and their son, Nathaniel, on the island of Martha's Vineyard in Massachusetts.

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  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Subtitled "Dispatches from the Unfinished Civil War". I picked this up thinking it was just about Civil War reenactors and tourists, but its so much more. Horwitz goes on a tour of the Southern states to see how the Civil War and its aftermath are still affecting people. A lot of it exposes deep seated resentments and institutional racism. It also shows that we are still having the same battles today that we were having 20 years ago when it was written; should the Confederate flag still fly, should statues of Confederate heroes still be on display, what revisionist history is still being taught - do today's (then or now) truly know why the war was fought? Oh and he does go on a crash tour of the war's battle fields with a reenactor who takes reenacting to an extreme bordering on insane. Its well worth your time. I'll let these quotes speak for themselves...We were raised Methodists, but we converted to the Confederacy. There wasn't time for both.Mostly, though, the fort attracted ordinary tourists, many of whom possessed a muddled grasp of American history. Visitors often asked McGill why he didn't mention the "Star-Spangled Banner". He had to explain that the national anthem was composed during the shelling of a different fort in a different conflict. Others asked whether it was true that John Brown fired the first shot at the fort. "One guy even asked me why so many Civil War battles were fought on national parks." McGill said.Guthrie exhaled the depleted air of a thousand other towns across the back-country South, bypassed by the interstate and drained of vitality by decades of migration to the city.Everywhere, it seemed, I had to explore two pasts and two presents; one white, one black, separate and unreconcilable. The past had poisoned the present and the present, in turn, now poisoned remembrance of things past.I was born in 1921 and was raised up with segregation and separate water fountains. It was stupid now that I think of it. All these signs saying 'white' and 'colored' when most people couldn't even read.9/10 S: 4/18/19 - 5/8/19 (21 Days)
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    In Confederates in the Attic, journalist Tony Horwitz tours many historic southern Civil War battle sites and towns, struck by how alive and important the Civil War remains for so many Southerners. I can't believe it took this long for me to read this one; I loved his Blue Latitudes, about the voyages of Captain Cook, and I'd thought about this one many times. It took my LT brother Mark singing its praises on the phone to get me in gear.Among other things, Horwitz becomes involved in Civil War enactments, where "hardcore" participants will go to great lengths for authenticity:“Look at these buttons,” one soldier said, fingering his gray wool jacket. “I soaked them overnight in a saucer filled with urine.” Chemicals in the urine oxidized the brass, giving it the patina of buttons from the 1860s. “My wife woke up this morning, sniffed the air and said, ‘Tim, you’ve been peeing on your buttons again.”No surprise, issues of race remain important. "Vicksburg confirmed the dispiriting pattern I'd seen elsewhere in the South . . . Everywhere, it seemed, I had to explore two pasts and two presents, one white, one black, separate and unreconcilable. The past had poisoned the present and the present, in turn, now poisoned remembrance of things past." Horwitz's sense of humor helps make the sometimes difficult journey companionable, and there are insights galore:“You asked how I'd define prejudice. That's it. Making assumptions about people you've never met.” (I love this one!)“The way I see it," King said, "your great-grandfather fought and died because he believed my great-grandfather should stay a slave. I'm supposed to feel all warm inside about that?”“For Robert Lee Hodge, {participating in Civil War reenactments} was also a way of life. As the Marlon Brando of battlefield bloating, he was often hired for Civil War movies.” (This specialist in battlefield bloating becomes an important traveling companion; I think that's a photo of him on the cover).Anyway, I can't think of a reason not to give this five stars. It was written in 1998, but feels like he wrote it yesterday. It gave me more insights into how Trump supporters view the world than any other book I've read, including Hillbilly Elegy. A favored few can create page-turning nonfiction, and this guy is one of them. I want to read more of his; probably his A Voyage Long and Strange next.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    If Tony Horwitz’ study of modern echoes of the Civil War fails to meet its goals, it’s not for lack of trying. Horowitz spent more than a year traveling the modern South, talking to educators, historians, re-enactors, heritage groups, leaders in both black and white communities, and general good-ole-boys. But the book drags on without ever being able to point to one thing – or even several things – that would explain why so many Americans remain unable to let go of the heritage of the Civil War – or even precisely what that heritage is.

    Battles over displays of the Confederate battle flag (the familiar “stars and bars”), maintenance of public memorials, states’ rights, and de facto segregation continue to fume in the American south, occasionally flaring into open conflagration. There’s both right and wrong on all sides, and it may be that this is what keeps the book from coming to a definitive statement about the issues.

    For all of that, it’s an informative read. Horowitz clarifies many misunderstandings and outright falsehoods along the way and notes that neither Union nor Confederate supporters had a patent on mudslinging or exaggeration. Perhaps his very inability to take a stand on either side is what allows the reader to consider viewpoints in opposition to his or her own. And for that quality, if for no other, “Confederates in the Attic” is worth a read.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    One of the best books I ever read. It was fascinating about different views on the Civial War.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    I've read several of Hortwitz's books. I enjoyed this one and found it informative, but I don't have a natural fascination with the subject. I lived in Alabama for 13 years, and so in a way this book lacked novelty for me. Well worth it, though, and I recommend Blue Latitudes and A Voyage Long & Strange.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    adult nonfiction, American culture in the south. Attempts to shed light on what the civil war, confederate spirit, and the confederate flag mean to different groups, from both African-American and white populations in different southern cities. Most amusing are the anecdotes relating to the hard-core confederate reenactors (preferring the all-day marching, sleeping in ditches, eating weevil-infested hardtack to the actual fighting scenes).
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    A few years ago I went on a tour in Dalton GA which went around to various places associated with the Great Locomotive Chase. I got the feeling from one of the tour guides that for her, the Civil war was still going on. I am not a civil war buff but I was curious, being a transplanted yankee in the South since 1961, to learn more about people's attitudes toward the war. I started this book by looking up some of the places that I had been to or wanted to go to, and the section on Andersonville, GA, was where I started, After that, I continued with the next couple chapters, and finally went back and started at the beginning and read the whole book. I read it over a period of a month or more, and it held my interest the whole time. I asked a friend who is much more interested in the Civil War than I am, and he said it was boring, but then he was raised in the south.What I got from the book is that opinions about the war are all over the place, depending on who you ask. There are enough people who care deeply about it and its consequences that it will never go away.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    What a book! What a writer! I picked up the book after hearing a few people in the bookstore mention this book after I purchased his latest book as a present for my spouse. They said this book was "transformative". What I found most fascinating now, being in the era of Trump, is Horwitz's interviews in the mid 1990's with people I would call "pre-Trumpers". It illuminated how the base of 45 was in the making for decades. I didn't know much about the Civil War and the topic was not on my radar, but Horwitz held my attention. He has a unique and engaging way to write about the South, the War, and the cast of characters who make their life's work about keeping the legacy of their forefathers alive. Bravo!
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Balanced, poignant. He let's the characters speak for themselves. Great narration.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    This is my favorite book (so far) of the summer of 2008! Portrait of 90s America through the lens of the ever-troubled relationship between North and South, black and white, past and present. Funny, weird, wonderful, scary, sad--I was at times shocked, at other times just plain tickled by the relationships Horwitz describes in his work. Highly recommended for anyone who likes nonfiction and still has a memory of his/her own childhood fascination with Civil War history (Horwitz's remembrances of his own obsession with learning all he could about the Civil War reminded me of my own voluminous reading as a child and the eerie sense of presence I felt when I visited Gettysburg in 1983, right around the anniversary of the battle in early July). Good, good stuff here.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    I really enjoy Horowitz' books. Having grown up in the South, but never truly having understood the attraction many southerners have for the Civil War, Horowitz wrote an awesome, sometimes funny, and especially interesting accounting of southerners passion for the Civil War. Horowitz goes all the way into his research and even joins a group of Civil War reenactors.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    I stumbled across this book by accident. It’s fascinating, if often depressing. I’ve always maintained that if reenactors were really serious about authenticity, they’d issue live ammunition. Nevertheless, Horwitz, whose immigrant great-grandfather became obsessed with Civil War history, also caught the bug, and when they discovered a TV crew shooting a scene in the land next to their house in Maryland, decided to investigate what makes Confederate reenactors (they hate to be called that preferring terms like “living historians”) tick.Unfortunately, many of them can’t get over the fact they lost. Refusing to call it the Civil War (they prefer “War Between the States” which it wasn’t called at the time) they revel in southern mythology which they pass along to their children in organizations like the Children of the Confederacy’s catechism. “Yankees hate children,” the kids are taught; slaves revered their masters; and the war had nothing to do with slavery, they just didn’t want the government to tell them what to do (ironic in light of southern demands that northern states enforce the Fugitive Slave Laws.)Just to get a few things straight: 1. Nowhere in the Constitution is the right to secede mentioned; it’s in the Declaration of Independence. 2. Southern states all said in their proclamations of secession that their reason was slavery; to argue otherwise is disingenuous. 3. We could refocus the debate over slavery by redefining the issue as one about "property." Slaves were considered property. The Constitution protected property. Supreme Court decisions through 1857 consistently considered slaves to be property. The Founders wrote in many compromises in the Constitution to protect the rights of southern plantation owners (of which they could include themselves, most of them.) David Blight (Race and Reunion) has noted that slaves by 1860 were worth about $3.5 billion, an enormous sum then and of course the southern plantation owners didn't want to give up their property. The cotton business was booming and had doubled in value every decade for four decades before 1860. Ironically, one might posit that the southern states needed a strong federal government to enforce the Fugitive Slave Acts and it was states like Wisconsin and Pennsylvania who insisted on "states' rights by passing laws making enforcement of federal Fugitive Slave laws difficult. Southern states, in their declarations of secession documents, said the reason for secession was their desire to protect slavery (see South Carolina and Georgia esp., which also makes reference to slaves as property and their constitutional right thereto). Slavery and race have sullied this country for centuries; to whitewash it is rather sickening. As Bernard Malamud wrote in The Fixer: "There's something cursed, it seems to me, about a country where men have owned men as property. The stink of that corruption never escapes the soul, and it is the stink of future evil."A constant theme is the power of symbols and nothing illustrates that more than his dispassionate recounting of the killing of Michael Westerman in Guthrie, Kentucky. Westerman was out driving in his red truck with a large rebel flag flying from the back. What the flag meant to those involved was far less important than what it meant to those who used Michael’s death as a rallying cry for their own particular agenda or hatred. Horwitz’s interviews reveal that Michael liked the battle flag simply because it matched his truck. To the kid who shot him, clearly unintentional through the side of his truck as they raced along the highway at 85 mph, it was only a symbol of the white bullies in town. Michael's glorification -- he has his own tribute website -- was not what Horwitz heard from others in town when he interviewed them. Much of the town’s reverence for the battle flag seemed to be exacerbated by the school board’s wish to change the mascot -- the Rebel, which served only to inflame teams they had to play. Ironically, Guthrie, in Todd County, Kentucky was on the Union side during the Civil War. In a further irony, Freddie Morrow who did the shooting, was sent to prison for life plus an extra four years for violating Westerman’s civil rights. More recently, the power of that symbol was demonstrated when that kid shot up the black church killing several people and calls have echoed throughout the south for and against removal of confederate symbols.Lots of interesting stories.Horwitz writes well, with compassion, and with humor. My wife thought the book (we listened to it together) was a bit reminiscent of Bill Bryson. I agree he has the same sense of irony that has you smile except that in the case of this book that smile is followed by a quick grimace rather than a broad grin. Note that his interview with Shelby Foote is worth the price of the book.Favorite quote: “Charlestonian Baptists were so religious they wouldn’t fuck standing up for fear someone might think they were dancing.”
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    Intriguing view of a side of America that most people don’t come across. The moral of the story is sort of refreshing, but the state of things is not. However, things can only get better. I suppose and hope.As for the book, it gets a little stale in the middle. The narrative gets a little repetitive. Perhaps it’s supposed to be so. Regardless, an interesting read that I’m happy to have ingested.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    A penetrating and sometimes funny look at what the Civil War means to Americans, especially in the Southeastern states. Highly recommended.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    This is the first book about the Civil War I have read. I enjoyed it because of the modern take by profiling current enthusiasts rather than simply telling the stories of the past. I am a Yankee and briefly lived in Savannah, GA a few years ago. I can relate to a lot of things Horwitz discussed about the feelings towards Yankees that are still prevalent today. This book helped me understand why these emotions still exist and the importance of the history on the South.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    I give Horwitz credit for seeking out some of the more unsavory elements to interview including the crazy biker bar. The interview with Shelby Foote was enlightening, I actually lost some respect him as a person but gained appreciation for a certain pro-south view, he is a time traveler from 1860. Overall a fun trip through various wacky American sub-cultures, like Louis Theroux's Weird Weekends. The book has probably lost something with time, since the people interviewed are fading and times are changing, it's a snapshot of the zeitgeist of the 1990s in relation to the Civil War. This was a fun read since I did some re-enactments at Antietam in the mid-1990s, about the time this book was written. In 1982, I also re-enacted Lee's 100 mile march from Petersburg to Appomattox, by foot, before there was a tourist route, sleeping in people's back yards.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    I've been mainlining the works of this particular author, and the second book of his that I've read does not at all disappoint. This is less of a history book, and more of a study of modern cultural reactions to a very bloody, contentious, and altogether bloody awful period in American history. Some parts of it were very, very difficult for me to read, but Horowitz succeeds in his attempt to treat all sides of the South's perception of the Civil War with as even-handed an approach as he can muster. Though it was published nearly fifteen years ago, it's still full of valid and important information, and I would very much advise reading it anywhere, from the train to a coffee shop to the beach. if you choose the beach, though, do it under an umbrella; I got so sunk into the book that I gave myself a dreadful sunburn.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Published in 1998, this is Tony Horwitz's account of his travels through the southern US in an attempt to better understand the Civil War, his own childhood fascination with that conflict, and its impact on the modern South. In pursuit of which he visits battlefields and museums, takes up with a dauntingly hardcore Civil War reenactor, meets a Scarlett O'Hara look-alike, and accidentally stumbles into a community where a recent shooting by a black youth of a guy with a confederate flag on his truck has inflamed racial tensions in a truly depressing fashion.It's an interesting book, and a thoughtful one. Horwitz makes a careful point of not oversimplifying anything and letting the various people he meets state their cases without judging anyone too harshly. I cannot say, even after reading this, that I remotely understand the attitude that many white southerners have towards the Civil War (or the War Between the States, or the War of Northern Aggression, or whatever they might like to call it). I can't imagine having the kind of strong ties to the past that some of these folks do, nor am I capable of making the kind of cognitive leap that leads to the conclusion that the war was not actually about slavery at all. But I do now feel like I have a better understanding of what it is I don't understand, if that makes any sense. And some of the divisions and discontents that he observed in the South in the 90s seem to be very much the same ones that are now surfacing all over the US, here in the 2010s, so perhaps any understanding at all is a useful thing.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Several months ago, my cousin and I were touring some Civil War sites in Missouri, and we came to a cemetery with 7 Confederate soldiers buried there under a monument. Those 7 men had relatively new grave markers next to the old ones, and fresh flowers on their graves. We were astonished. "That was 150 years ago!" we said.Well, we were wrong. In some places, it was only yesterday, and Tony Horwitz, learns one morning when a Civil War documentary is being filmed on his street and he goes out to talk with the reenactors, discovering a whole new world. He decides to spend some time as a part of this group, as he travels to Civil War sites across the South. I was amazed (although I don't think I can say "surprised") at the things he found. His stories are hilarious, poignant, and sad. Extremely interesting and thought-provoking book!
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    The Smithsonian has been referred to as “America’s attic”, but down in the Old South in the mid-1990’s, Tony Horwitz found some artifacts that a lot of people might wish had not been hauled out into the light. Prowling around the sites of Civil War battles, consorting with "hard core living historians", and interviewing ordinary folks from many walks of life, Horwitz discovered that much of what he thought he knew about the Civil War was mythic, that in many small towns and rural communities a sense of separatism is still very strong, and that the "lost cause" maintains a grip on the hearts of many citizens of the former Confederacy. Despite his northern liberal upbringing, Horwitz was able to mingle gently with conservative southerners, some of whom were openly racist or anti-Semitic, and get them talking. I do wonder what might have changed in the last couple decades since the book was written, given that it predates 9/11, the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, the election of an African American President, and such. I would be glad of an update, but nevertheless I give this book an unequivocal thumbs up.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    I remember this book vividly, if for no other reason than what I consider to be one of the most hideous covers of any book that I have read. Fortunately I did not let that stop me and inside I found a delicious mix of cultural history, personal reminiscence and odd, but true (I believe) miscellany about people who are fixated on the Civil War era. The book almost reads like a picaresque novel or collection of stories which makes it even more fun. The Civil War reenactors are truly a strange breed, but endlessly interesting in their passion for the era. It was a delight to read.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Tony Horwitz fully embraces the search for the Southern historical memory of the Civil War in this funny and witty page turner. Loved it.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Addictive, hilarious, fascinating, bizarre, alive. I loved it. I was thoroughly informed, entertained, and appauled as I learned about civil war soldiers and the modern social eccentricities of those who seek to recreate their lives down to the smallest details.Available at Teton County Library, call number 973.7 Horwitz
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    The Civil War never ended for most of the people in this book. Even in 1998 (when the book was written) there exists a sub-culture of die hard supporters of the Confederate States of America (CSA).Now, we're not just talking about hardcore weirdos,although they populate a lot of the book. North Carolina brings us the Cats of the Confederacy (yes, cats!); South Carolina , where artist Manning Williams toils on a painting that he'll says he'll never complete. The title? "Lincoln in Hell".But there are also people for whom the war may have ended but they do their best to keep its ideals alive. Racial prejudice often going hand in hand with religious intolerance (blacks and Jews mainly) are an accepted cultural reality. A young white man is shot down in cold blood by a carload of black teenagers. Why? He drove his truck, proudly displaying the rebel flag flying in the rear, through a predominantly black neighborhood. Certainly not a reason for murder, but was it an intentional provocation?A favorite character in the book for me was hardcore re-enactor Robert Lee Hodge, who will do almost anything to experience life as a soldier during the Civil War. Rail thin, unkempt, eating only what the soldiers ate, wearing clothes as close as possibly authentic to reality, he travels the Civil War trails and battlefields experiencing the war, but also answering questions and even recruiting others to the re-enactor cause. The author accompanies him on a "Civil Wargasm", a week long warp speed trek of the war, from Gettysburg to Antietam to the Shenandoah Valley and dozens of battlefields in between !I loved the book (although it deeply disturbed me as well), it's filled with Civil War trivia, the correction of many long held war myths, and for the most part a fairly unbiased look at the people who live in the places the war was fought in. It helps to have some idea of the historical context of the war, but the author makes it clear what's going on (now and then). If you are a history buff or just someone interested in southern culture and beliefs, this is just the book for you.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    This book is an exploration of the American South's obsession with the Civil War. The author journeyed from the Carolina low country to the Mississippi delta to the Shenandoah Valley visiting battle fields and war memorials and asking people why they still care so much about the war. He participated in "hardcore" reenactments of battles as well as a trip with the main "character" of the book, Robert Lee Hodge the most "hardcore" reenactor of them all, on a Civil War-gasm which involved dressing in period costume and visiting as many battlefields and memorials as possible within a week. He spoke with members of the Sons and Daughters of the Confederacy, a woman who makes a living dressing up as Scarlett O'Hara for Japanese tourists, and the oldest living Confederate widow. Along the way he learned that predjudice is alive and well in the South along with a good dose of hate for the federal government. In the end the three reasons that stand out are; romance for a lost way of life, a perceived lack of states rights, and racism. The rebel flag was the conerstone of a lot of his visits. It represents the three issues I have stated above, but it also represents for many young men a statement of rebelion.This was a fasinating read. I learned a lot about the Civil War and about attitudes in the South. The book is slightly dated, it was written in the late 1990's, but these issues still linger especially the controversy over states rights. I can see many right wing policitians and Tea Party members making the same comments as the people in this book. It would be interesting to revisit these people and places to see if the election of a black president has changed views or enhanced them. Besides being informative, this book is a very good sociological study and well worth reading.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Really fascinating look at what makes the South tick, as well as inside info on Civil War reenactors. Lively, fun to read and full of quirky real-life characters.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    This book isn't the best writing I've ever seen, and it could use some shaping and editing, but it contains some interesting information about things I did not know were going on and poses some good questions. I found myself thinking about it and wanting to talk to someone about it long after I read it.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    The South is a fascinating place full of Civil War reenactors, hooded Klansmen, and miscellaneous eccentrics that continue to fight a war long ended. There's something both funny and scary about Horwitz narrative -- funny because so many people are trying to snap victory from the laws of defeat (and the jaws are closed) and scary because of the remarkable revisionism in the perspective of the Southerners profiled. That the Civil War was about something other than slavery, for instance. State's rights is there, of course, bit it is the states' rights to allow slavery that has some into question. As the author points out, the South Carolina Declaration makes it pretty clear what the war was about:-----We affirm that these ends for which this Government was instituted have been defeated, and the Government itself has been made destructive of them by the action of the non-slaveholding States. Those States have assume the right of deciding upon the propriety of our domestic institutions; and have denied the rights of property established in fifteen of the States and recognized by the Constitution; they have denounced as sinful the institution of slavery; they have permitted open establishment among them of societies, whose avowed object is to disturb the peace and to eloign the property of the citizens of other States. They have encouraged and assisted thousands of our slaves to leave their homes; and those who remain, have been incited by emissaries, books and pictures to servile insurrection. For twenty-five years this agitation has been steadily increasing, until it has now secured to its aid the power of the common Government. Observing the forms of the Constitution, a sectional party has found within that Article establishing the Executive Department, the means of subverting the Constitution itself. A geographical line has been drawn across the Union, and all the States north of that line have united in the election of a man to the high office of President of the United States, whose opinions and purposes are hostile to slavery. He is to be entrusted with the administration of the common Government, because he has declared that that "Government cannot endure permanently half slave, half free," and that the public mind must rest in the belief that slavery is in the course of ultimate extinction. This sectional combination for the submersion of the Constitution, has been aided in some of the States by elevating to citizenship, persons who, by the supreme law of the land, are incapable of becoming citizens; and their votes have been used to inaugurate a new policy, hostile to the South, and destructive of its beliefs and safety. On the 4th day of March next, this party will take possession of the Government. It has announced that the South shall be excluded from the common territory, that the judicial tribunals shall be made sectional, and that a war must be waged against slavery until it shall cease throughout the United States. The guaranties of the Constitution will then no longer exist; the equal rights of the States will be lost. The slaveholding States will no longer have the power of self-government, or self-protection, and the Federal Government will have become their enemy. -----It is an amazing read, the people are stunning and entertaining, and I highly recommend it.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Very fun ... it's probably a bad sign that my gut reaction to this book is fun, because there should be more horror, what with the Civil War casualties and the description of modern Klan recruiting. But if you are the kind of person who likes to geek out on a pet interest, it is nearly impossible not to get a vicarious thrill from Horwitz's two year exploration of present-day manifestations of Civil War obsession. At first, I found the wide variety of a tone a little jarring - he moves pretty quickly from cute anecdotes and trivia about Civil War reenactors to more nuanced conversations about land, heritage and history and then right into appalling hate crimes. But by the end it does a fine job of gelling into a cohesive, if multi-faceted, demonstration of how Civil War issues are still playing out in today's society.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    A great history of the Civil War from the Southern perspective of today. In many ways it is depressing in that it illustrates that great tumultuous turning points like the Civil War or the Civil Rights Movement create change that only lasts for a few decades. It then erodes to the point that the change is there but very much attenuated. It also illustrates that history is only occasionally interested in the truth, most is embellished one way or another.