|
Loading... Confederates in the Attic: Dispatches from the Unfinished Civil War (edition 1999)by Tony Horwitz
Work detailsConfederates in the Attic: Dispatches from the Unfinished Civil War by Tony Horwitz
A penetrating and sometimes funny look at what the Civil War means to Americans, especially in the Southeastern states. Highly recommended. (  ) nmele | Apr 6, 2013 |  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. (  ) LonelyReader | Jan 22, 2013 | A fun trip through various wacky American sub-cultures related to the American Civil War, like Louis Theroux's Weird Weekends. 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 gained appreciation for a certain pro-south view (even if I disagree with it). 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. (  ) Stbalbach | Sep 28, 2012 | 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. ( ) themythicalcodfish | Aug 26, 2012 | 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. ( ) bragan | Aug 23, 2012 |
Nostalgia tinges ''Confederates in the Attic'' but seldom. One of the ironies of this book is that Horwitz is clearly a deep-dyed peace seeker. His judiciously balanced sympathies make him uncomfortable at times, caught between two camps fighting over turf. He longs for roots in the land. What he has is roots in intellectual honesty.
References to this work on external resources.
|
 Google Books — Loading...Popular coversRatingAverage: (4.11)
Is this you?Become a LibraryThing Author. |
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
2
Wikipedia in English (4)
1