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Summary: Avid explorer in search of the fire in the rebel's soul.
Review: There are many passionate, well-researched Civil War books. What sets this apart is Horwitz's own compassion for the contradictions of the rebel. Lucky for us, his grandfather, a Yiddish speaking immigrant in 1882, passed an infinity for this 'lost cause' on to a writer gifted with insight and humor.
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Summary: This book for diarists as well as Civil War lovers.
Review: Take a trip and meet real people with a genuine love and passion for the Civil War. This is one book to savor and take your time with, perhaps then you too can "escape" into a facinating period of our history.
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Summary: Anyone who's into the South or Civil War will love this book
Review: Confederates is a great read. Horwitz uses the Civil War as a lens to look at the South. The book is basically a great adventure story about his travels, with a lot of history and sociology thrown in. Like a garage sale junkie, Horwitz can find treasures among the current and past inhabitants of the South. His writing is superb, capturing the complexity of the people he meets and conveying with great humor the passion they feel for their land and its history. Cold Mountain got me started on my Civil War trail. Confederates brings this story into the present. Easily the best book I've read this year.
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Summary: Exactly, completely right
Review: From the cover photo, I felt certain this was another "Those ignorant rebs..." book. To the contrary. Displaying the same compassion and understanding for his subjects as in "Baghdad Without A Map," Tony Horwitz does a magnificent job of showing the scars -- all of them -- and the beauty -- all of it -- left on the psyche of the American South by the Civil War. Horwitz explains well what it means to live in a part of the world where losing is an unavoidable historical fact that finds new embodiments daily (the Kentucky race-killing, for example) and where hope finds a thousand tiny ways to rise, both in a clear-eyed vision for the future and a rose-colored view of the past (Cats of the Confederacy?). Another way of saying that this is a timely read on a timeless subject. Horwitz prompted my own interest in Shiloh, my own family's story of the era, and, most amazingly to me, made me wish I'd spent a Gasm with Rob Hodge, too, which, for a liberal Southerner, is a lot.
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Summary: Explains to the Yankee diaspora our empathy with the War
Review: It often takes an outsider to sweep through the south and paint an accurate picture of its citizens. V.S. Naipal did that in "A Turn in the South". Tony Horwitz does that with his book. We southerners are tired of being branded anachronistic racists when we honor our confederate battle flag and our ancestors who fought in the war. (My ancestors fought for the confederacy and the American revolution too.) Mr. Horwitz takes the most difficult task of explaining to the bewildered people of, say, San Francisco why southerners still honor the civil war dead. He does this as a non-partisan by stander whose own ancestors were post-Civil-war Jewish immigrants to the North. One notable chapter is the section on Shelby Foote. Poor Mr. Foote's early career as a novelist and his life-long literary scholarship has been overshadowed by his fame as a civil war scholar and commentator on the Ken Burns PBS Civil War series. I recommend his novel Shiloh as well as his correspondence with Walker Percy. Add Faulkner, Flannery O'Conner, and now Tony Horwitz and you might possible fathom our unique culture down south. Bye yall.
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Summary: Interesting and Disturbing, but a GREAT READ!
Review: This is an extremely entertaining book and very well written. The characters are real although sometimes you almost wonder and hope that they aren't. The Civilwargasam with Robert Lee Hodge is, well, interesting. Each chapter tells the story of a different stop on Horwitz's journey across the south and there are colorful characters at each. It was very hard to put the book down at times and hard to keep reading it at others. I almost put it down for good with the chapter "Dying For Dixie" Sad! I'm glad that I kept with however. It was quite a ride, but well worth it!! Really a good read!!!!!
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Summary: A pleasant travelogue that lacks analysis
Review: Being a Civil War and reenactment buff, as well as a journalist with a strong interest in civil rights and race relations, I was very anxious to read "Confederates in the Attic." But I was disappointed by Tony Horwitz's straight-reporting style of writing. I found that the stories--while they might be interesting to the entry-level Civil War buff--lacked analysis. Horwitz does not clearly lay out a thesis, nor does he develop his work much beyond a travelogue of his time in the New South. For example, Horwitz's reporting of the facts surrounding a race-related killing--carefully noting skin color and racial slurs and the presence of the battle-flag-waving Klan, not to mention the quality of the author's backwater hotel room--was not that of a historian making profound connections about race and violence across the span of American history. It was that of a seemingly casual observer--who noted the distressing events in Kentucky with the same casual aloofness as he did his whirlwind tour of Virginia battlefields with living historian Robert Lee Hodge. On the plus side, however, Horwitz's book did allow me to relive some of my own travels past strip malls to reach a small patch of hallowed ground. Whether farby or hardcore, reenactors are history's footsoldiers, and many of them are fighting to hold onto our critical past before it gets paved over. It was nice to see the spotlight shining brightly on them.
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Summary: On The (Confederate) Road
Review: When this book first came out, I was concerned that it would, like so many books, paint those who still memorialize the Confederacy as either rabid racists or slack-jawed yokels. However, the photograph of Robert Lee Hodge on the cover kept calling me. Once I took the plunge, I couldn't pull myself out. He critically examines Southrons and our obsession for the War Between The States, yet he does so with pathos, respect, objectivity, and a sense of humor. I haven't enjoyed a vicarious road trip this much since reading Jack Kerouac and Hunter S. Thompson. The chronicle is worth reading, if for nothing else, the 'Gasm with Rob Hodge. He draws some interesting parallels between those re-enacting the 1860's and those attempting to re-enact the 1960's as well.
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Summary: take this book with a grain of salt
Review: A very entertaining book but a horrible depiction of the south. This definitely was a page turner but i was confused at the authors intent and i was really taken back by many of the reviews for this book. Many reviewers below have bashed the southern people making them all sound like "backwoods racists". Mr. Horowitz interviewed and wrote about a handful of southern extremists and ,according to many of the previous reviews, this is how the majority of southerners act. I have lived my whole live in the south except for the last two years where i have lived in Japan. I have traveled around the united states and around the world and there is one thing i have noticed that there is "extremist" or "racists" everywhere but i do not compare that country or state to those small minded people. This book should be taken with a grain of salt.
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Summary: An Interesting Story, but a Slow Read
Review: This novel is written by Tony Horwitz basically as an account of his travels through the South. On his travles he passes through many historic towns and stops at important landmarks. As interesting as this may sound, this novel is written almost like a 400 page newspaper article. It was a task to bring myself to finishing this novel, but since it was a required assignment I had to. Otherwise I would have put it down after the first chapter and stuck on a shelf somewhere.
For those diehard southerners or anyone who enjoys learning about the Civil War this would probably be an interesting and descent novel. However, for those who look for suspense and action when reading a book I reccomend that you stay away from this particular novel. I have given it a three out of five stars only because some parts did interest me, but for the most part I did not look forward to having to continue reading this book.
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