Rating: 
Summary: An Interesting Piece of Fiction
Review: What a disappointment this work was. I read it primarily because of the excellent prior work of the award-winning author Tony Horwitz. It turned out to be a selectively-biased work of fiction presented to an unsuspecting public as non-fiction. When his work was read on National Public Radio, there were so many complaints about the inaccuracies in it, that NPR added a disclaimer to their broadcast. Horwitz, for some undisclosed personal reason, appears to hate people from the South and attacks them with the subtlety of a World War II propagandist. Here is hoping that the very talented Mr. Horwitz will abandon such cheap shots in the future and return to the quality work for which he has been rightly honored in his more lucid past.
Rating: 
Summary: A Wealth of Material
Review: First a disclaimer: I am a travel book junkie and I like even bad travel writing. This is not bad writing. Horwitz is very talented and can take what are probably mundane interviews and turn a good tale.Horwitz crisscrosses the South after getting bit by the Civil War bug. His first encounter is with a bunch of reenactors. Horwitz spends a damp night reenacting in the frosty hills of Virginia with "hardcores" (guys who presumably do not bathe while reenacting). This reenactment consisted largely of "spoon right" and "spoon left" and "Following suit, I snuggled my neighbor." Showing some good sense Horwitz leaves the reenactors to go about their business without him and he takes up the trail of other obsessive-compulsives who day in day out re-live the Civil War. To his credit, Horwitz shows an amazing amount of empathy for these folks. He does not ridicule or belittle the people he interviews and therefore, I think he presents an unbiased portrayal of at least a portion of current southern culture and thought. Don't get me wrong, I think these folks are way out there and probably should get beyond their defensiveness over the war. You can shout "States Rights" to the hills, but the war was about slavery. The North won and we should all agree that it was good thing that slavery ended. But as Horwitz shows, there are many, many people out there who will defend the Confederacy to their dying breath and lash out about northern atrocities. The chapter on Andersonville is particularly poignant. Apparently, there is a small crowd of misfits who celebrate the "martyrdom" of the camp commander, Henry Wirz. Wirz was a war criminal. Thousands and thousands of prisoners of war died due to inhumane conditions at Wirz's camp. Yet there are some who feel compelled to celebrate his life and rationalize that, "the North did just as bad." Maybe so--but I don't know that anyone celebrates the north pow camps and makes saints out of their commanders. Someone criticized Howitz for not having a thesis and he probably doesn't, but isn't it ok to just write an interesting book showing a little bit of Americana that lives on under the radar screens of popular culture.
Rating: 
Summary: Stranger than fiction
Review: Truth is stranger than fiction, and CONFEDERATES IN THE ATTIC certainly proves the point.
War correspondent Tony Horwitz sets out to explore the contention that some people in the South never stopped fighting The Civil War. He witnesses Klan rallies; journeys to Andersonville, the Confederate prison camp; interviews the great Civil War historian Shelby Foote; but by far the most interesting people he meets are the reenactors. Horwitz travels from Antietam to Gettysburg in the company of Robert Lee Hodge, a real "hardcore" who insists on drinking out of a tin cup, eating hard tack and salt pork, wearing homespun clothing, speaking in authentic nineteenth century diction, and maintaining a starvation diet. On the battlefied, Hodge would "do the bloat," swelling his belly, curling his hands, puffing out his cheeks, in imitation of the bloated corpses found in Matthew Brady photographs.
Horwitz visits Confederate museums, where he finds a torch used by Sherman's men, a carpetbagger's suitcase, a handwritten list of South Carolians killed in the war, a bestseller in Columbian bookstores.
Horwitz even visits a bar that celebrated Martin Luther King Jr.'s birthday with a "Thank God for James Earl Ray Party." He also tells us about Michael Westerman, who drove through Guthrie, Kentucky, flying a rebel flag. Carloads of black young men ran him to ground, one of whom shot Guthrie dead.
This book is frightening, informative, and funny in spots. If you're looking for something different, CONFEDERATES IN THE ATTIC is a great choice.
Rating:
Summary: Humor and insight into the American South
Review: When I first picked up the book I thought it was going to be another New Yorker writing about how backward and dumb Southerners are. (I was born in NY and now live in Virginia). I was happily surprised to see that it was not. The author describes the modern south through the lens of the civil war. The characters and stories are better than any fiction. His statements on the importance of the civil may be a bit overblown, since he mainly spoke with people with a heavy interest in the war. Like most American students I fear that southern children know very little about the war. The book reads well and it very enjoyable. I would call it travel writing with an historical twist. For military history buffs it is a nice break from the usual style.
Rating:
Summary: Outstanding!
Review: This is the book that turned me into a Civil War buff. (Although we prefer the term "enthusiast"...) It goes deeper into the results of the CW than any other book I've read. Horwitz must either have ice water in his veins or about 3 brain cells to go where he does and ask the questions he does. Since the book is so well written, I'm going with the former.
Rating:
Summary: humorous and informative
Review: I picked up this book as a means of killing time on a cross-country flight and found that I couldn't put it down. Horwitz aims to show how memories of the Civil War still resonate with some Southerners and frequently manifest themselves in bizarre forms. Horwitz gives episodic accounts of his travels in the South, and he has a good sense of the humorous side of every incident. At the same time, he also reports on serious issues such as the rebel flag debate, and gives clear explanations of how Confederate apologists are manipulating the facts about the war to their own advantage in such situations.
Rating:
Summary: History that is still very much alive...
Review: I previously encountered journalist and former foreign correspondent Horowitz via his intermittently interesting book on travels in the Middle East, Baghdad Without A Map. Having only a passing interest in the Civil War, I hadn't really considered reading this until a friend of mine strongly recommended it in the course of talking about a mutual friend who is a Civil War reenactor. In any event, once I started reading Horowtiz's exploration of the legacy of the war in the South, I was quickly drawn in. He starts by asking himself why he, as a Jewish kid growing up in Washington, D.C., was so fascinated with the Civil War, and why he had instinctually been drawn to the Confederates as a child. This leads him to deeper questions as to what the war means-particularly to Southerners, and this means doing some extensive traveling through the South and talking to people. The book's strength is that like any good journalist, he gets around and gets people to talk to him-and not self-censor themselves. It starts with him getting to know some reenactors he meets by his house, slowly building a friendship with their leader Rob. As he soon learns, there are two kinds of reenactors, "hardcores" and "farbs." The first are so authentic that when in character, they refuse to eat anything but period food, and eschew such modern conveniences as tents and the like. They also generally prefer to avoid the battle reenactments, as there is no really authentic way to replicate the experience of being wounded and killed. One gets the sense these guys would kill their mothers for a chance to time travel back to 1861. The latter group, the so-called "farbs" are the more mainstream and harmless variety of reenactors. Horowitz's adventures with the reenactors form a kind of comic respite from the fairly serious tone of the rest of his narrative. At one point he and Rob go on a Civil War road trip of epic proportions, dubbed "The Civil Wargasm," in which they try and visit as many Civil War historical sites as possible in a 10-day mad dash. Other portions of the book are less carefree, and may prove downright shocking and disturbing to non-Southerners. In the north, the Civil War is history, whereas in the south, it's living history. Most of the war was fought in the south, and, as history bears elsewhere in the world, the losers are more apt to harbor memories than are the victors. Horowitz shows how the memories become mythology, and how this mythology is drawn upon-and often twisted-for all manner of causes. In a number of cases, his follow-up fact checking on various statements reveal a truth divergent from popularly held myth-the legend of Sherman's March being one prime example. On the whole it's a rather depressing portrait of the south, where history is used as an excuse for current problems and where both blacks and whites are both willing to openly badmouth Jews to passing reporters. It's essential reading for anyone in America or elsewhere who thinks the Civil War is a settled issue in our history.
Rating:
Summary: GREAT!
Review: This is really one of the best, most interesting, and original books out there. Horwitz does a great job of presenting the current tension in the South regarding the Civil War, Civil Rights, and the confederate flag. His writing is easily digested and often humorous while conveying important points about current events. Perhaps there is a liberal leaning in the book, however, Horwitz ably points out the errors of all that involve themselves in current Southern debates.
Rating:
Summary: AT LAST!! THE TRUTH ABOUT THE SOUTH!!
Review: finally a book has been written that accurately portrays life in the south and southerners in all their splendor! this book paints a vivid yet true impression of redneckia at its best...inbred, drunk, backward and stuck in a mixed up fabricated "memory" of a war they had nothing to do with. Two thumbs up!! i laughed so hard. No wonder they lost the civil war!! if that idiot bobby lee was as educated as the folks in this book i can see why he ordered picketts charge. what a rube!
Rating:
Summary: Can we ever be "all one country now?"
Review: Tony Horwitz's excellent book, "Confederates in the Attic: Dispatches from the Unfinished Civil War" reminded me of an encounter I had a few years ago. At the wedding (held - appropriately - in northern Virginia, not far from the Bull Run/Manassas battlefields) of the son of my boss (a native South Carolinian), I was confronted with the starkly differing, and emotionally charged, Northern and Southern views of the Civil War (as well as the often awkward attempts at reconciliation), which persist to this day. While talking with one of my boss's aunts (a native of Charleston, and seemingly a nice old lady), I mentioned, in an attempt at polite conversation, that my wife and I had found Charleston's pre-Civil War mansions to be beautiful. The response, which startled me, was a sharp, "there was nothing CIVIL about it...it was the War of Northern Aggression!!!" An hour or so later, as everyone prepared to leave, I once again ran into my boss's aunt, who this time apologized to me for her previous comment, stating that "the war was a long time ago...we're all one country now." As I read Horwitz's book, with its highly appropriate subtitle referring to "the Unfinished Civil War," I kept hearing echoes of this schizophrenic wedding conversation, with its conflicting themes -- of anger and reconciliation, past and future, remembering and letting go, mythology and "fact" -- in the author's encounters and conversations. What was the Civil War exactly, and why do so many people continue to care so much about it nearly 140 years after it ended? In "Confederates in the Attic," Tony Horwitz - a Pulitzer Prize winner for his writings on other war zones -- hits the road (and the library) in an attempt to find out. In my opinion, he does a great job in helping us to think through these questions. Two more points on "Confederates in the Attic." First, if you think that Tony Horwitz overdoes things in his portrayal of stark differences between Northerners and Southerners, Whites and Blacks, urban and rural dwellers, then I suggest you look at a color-coded, county-by-county map of the last Presidential election. If you do, you will see that vast swaths of this country (the rural South, the sparsely settled Rocky Mountain West, the agricultural Plains states, the white, evangelical "Bible Belt") are largely in one color (Republican), while much smaller (but far more densely populated) areas of the country (the diverse big cities, the Northeast, the Pacific coast, and the industrial Midwest) are largely in another color (Democrat). This electoral map reflects some real - and deep - divides in America today, on issues like "big government" vs. "states rights," guns, race, property rights, regional differences, etc. In other words, many of the same nasty, complex issues which ultimately sparked the Civil War. Notice also that the electoral map divides fairly neatly along Union/Confederacy lines. So, how much has changed in America over the past 135 years? Well, depending upon who you talk to (and Tony Horwitz talks to everyone!), you'll get diametrically different answers. Second, these differences are directly mirrored in Americans' differing views of the Civil War - even when they know little (or nothing) about that war (and Horwitz finds that ignorance is rampant). I found Horwitz's recounting of the story of Michael Westerman particularly revealing in this regard. Here we have a seemingly clearcut case of a young white man flying the rebel flag from his truck being shot to death by a young black man, apparently enraged by this (and supposedly by someone in Westerman's truck yelling "Niggers" and shaking the flag with his hand). Dig a little deeper, however (as Horwitz does), and you find that the black man (Freddie Morrow) apparently had no idea what the flag stood for (he thought it was ''just the 'Dukes of Hazzard' sign"), while the white man (Westerman), apparently just thought the flag looked "sharp' and matched his red truck. Of course, many people - white and black - chose NOT to dig deeper, but instead to immediately line up on one side or the other based on their preconceived belief systems. Thus, the Sons of Confederate Veterans hailed Westerman as a "Confederate Martyr" and hero, while Freddie's mother blamed "the flag and the '...'-calling," which in her view, is bound to "blow up" if "you keep putting it on people." Here we have a classic example of WHAT the Civil War was about, and WHY people still care. For a thoughtful examination of, among other things, whether or not - to quote my boss's aunt - we truly are "all one country now," I strongly recommend Tony Horwitz's book, "Confederates in the Attic."
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