Confederates in the Attic: Dispatches from the Unfinished Civil War | Tony Horwitz

Confederates in the Attic: Dispatches from the Unfinished Civil War | Tony Horwitz | Learn why the South is still "unreconstructed"!

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Confederates in th...

	Confederates in the Attic: Dispatches from the Unfinished Civil War Tony Horwitz Vintage, 1999 - 432 pages average customer review:based on 255 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

Odyssey of the South

Truth in America is getting harder to find. Corporations devote enormous energy to glossy advertising schemes while dumping their wares on naïve, product-hungry consumers. Much of our media is now comprised of propagandists rather than journalists. And our political leaders continually "spin" the truth to suit their own agendas. As Tony Horwitz discovered, there's also a small but fanatical cult of southerners who are putting their own spin on the Civil War. I'm not convinced these folks are "seriously bad news for the rest of America," as one reviewer noted (personally, I'm more concerned about our elected leaders). But they provide additional evidence that truth is a commodity that's increasingly distorted and marketed for both political and commercial ends.

This book was written several years ago, and has garnered extraordinary praise. I'll just offer that's it's one of the most well-written and enjoyable books I've read in years. Horwitz has an easy, fluid writing style. He lays down anecdotes of personal meetings and interviews with reenactors, museum proprietors, motel desk clerks, as well as more than a few southern reactionaries who insist on resurrecting the "Lost Cause" and venting hostility toward Yankees, an epithet that most of them use synonymously with liberals, Jews, the NAACP, the Federal government, etc. etc. Despite his bemusement during these encounters, Horwitz avoids patronizing these people. He allows them to vent, gently probes their rationality, then parts as a friend. It's not an easy thing to do, but Horwitz is a trained journalist and manages to walk the tightrope. The only time he unravels is, ironically, when he meets a black woman who teaches in Alabama. Her defense of the radical, anti-Semitic leader Louis Farakkhan, and Horwitz's outraged reaction, is one of the book's climactic moments.

The centerpiece of the book is the "Civil Wargasm" with hardcore reenactor Robert Lee Hodge. Hodge is sort of a Dean Moriarty to Horwitz's Sal Paradise, without the saintly aura that Kerouac's hero radiated. I'm not sure why Horwitz elevates Hodge to star status (his photograph graces the cover), since he lacks the dimension and irony of many of the more minor characters in the book. He's a fetishist who tries to travel back in time in an endless quest for the mystical Nirvana of Confederana, chattering obsessively in his own slang about "farbs" (less-than-authentic reenactors), and smearing his beard with salt pork. He reminds me of some of the Deadheads I once knew, circumventing the real world in their obsessive search for that perfect Jerry Garcia guitar solo.

The 5 stars given this book by most Amazon reviewers are well deserved. It is at turns humorous, poignant, and tragic. I haven't read such a compelling mix of history and sociology since the novel and film "Little Big Man." As a liberal Yankee whose great-great-grandfather died for the Union cause, it's hard for me to understand just why race, religion, and the rebel flag are so important "down there." I still don't fully understand, and probably never will. But I thank Tony Horwitz for running the gauntlet, staying true to his values, and offering a glimpse into another strange, overlooked corner of this wacky nation.

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Learn why the South is still "unreconstructed"!

Tony Horwitz's book is a humorous, disturbing, and utterly compelling look at the South's everlasting obsession with the Civil War. I started becoming a Civil War "fanatic" at the age of 7 when I first visited Lookout Mountain, part of the Chattanooga Battlefield Park in Tennessee. I've been hooked ever since. Like Horwitz, I can't explain why so many people in the South (including me) are so fascinated by the bloody war that cost over 600,000 dead. The wounds left behind by the war are still painful to many, and needless to say in many Southern communities reconstruction just didn't take.

Wanting to understand the Civil War's lingering impact on Southern society, Horwitz set off on a ten-state journey where he met a variety of strange characters, like Rob (whose pictured on the cover), a "Super Hardcore" Confederate living historian who marched for miles, drilled for hours with his other "Super Hardcore" comrades, and slept in the mud on rainy nights just to see what the soldiers 130+ years ago went through. The best part of the book is the long section on the "Civil Wargasm", which is achieved when Rob and Horwitz tour as many Civil War sites as possible in one week, while dressed entirely in reproduction Civil War outfits.

This book reveals in detail how the bitter feelings over the South's defeat in the war still remain strong among many, and debates over states rights, racism, and preserving heritage are causing tragic violence and divided communities. Horwitz leaves no stone unturned in his quest to learn the truth about why the war was fought, and why so many are STILL fighting it today. It is simply impossible to put this book down once you start, and it's an adventure you'll never forget. Highly recommended!

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"Confederates in the Attic"

An excellent book, clearly explaining what the South is and how it got that way. Absolutley impartial to either side of a very partial topic, Tony Horowitz has managed a balanced, honest look at the modern South. A book that is at once a history text, a sociological treatise and a comedy of errors. Anyone interested in the Civil War, civil rights and modern racism should read this book.

Confederates In The Attic

Overall, I thought this was a terrific, terrific book. Never before have I read something that deals with the past, present, and future as this book does. Confederates in the Attic by Tony Horwitz is great because it deals with how the Civil War affected everyone today. Horwitz goes from Civil War battle to Civil War battle, and gives a total description of each fight. He meets up with present day reenactors of the fights, and they are often very insightful. When Horwitz was at Shiloh, the groundskeeper of the battlesight gave him a tour that blew away several myths that I believed. It was amazing to read 'the real story' of the battle, not just the short, textbook version.
I also liked how Horwitz addressed the issue of civil rights and racism. He interviewed blacks, whites, poor, rich, high school dropouts, and the supremely educated. Each person had something to say, and Horwitz allows them to say it. For example, there was a big ruckus when a man was murdered for flying the Confederate flag in Mississippi. Horwitz interviews the family of the man killed, the killer, the police, the citizens, and even the high school principal of the man who was killed. Horwitz dove deep into this book, and gave a terrific read. I would recommend this book to anyone who wants to know more about the Civil War, but also would like to know about the South in general. I learned a lot about the South, something I didn't know much about before. It stunned me how the Civil War still affects everyone living today. Horwitz chose to write about this, and it makes for a great read.

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A fascinating new take on the Civil War

In the book, Horowitz explors the landscape the Civil War with a rather unusual sidekick: a hardcore confederate reenactor. This "Hardcore" at first seems like the comic-relief of the book, but as the story progresses, we begin to see a person that is deep, intellectual and sensitive. He's still extremely weird, eating half-rotten sowbelly, sleeping in the rain and walking on day-old blisters, but he's no longer a caricature. On a side note, Robert Lee Hodge, the "Hardcore," was the basis of a character in my play, To Kill An M-113 Creature. The other thing I found fascinating about Confederates in the Attic was the look at the lingering effects of the Civil War. Horowitz visited Richmond, VA during the debates over raising a statue of Arthur Ashe on Monument Avenue. He went to meetings of the Daughters of the Confederacy and inner city schools in Atlanta and a town divided over a murdered kid who flew a rebel flag on Martin Luther King day. He also discovered that many cherished battlefields are being encroached by expanding suburbs and strip malls. History, it seems, is losing out to developers and government lowlifes. I would recommend this book to anyone interested in the Civil War, the Civil Rights movement or reenacting. It's one of my favorites.

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