Rating: 
Summary: Thoroughly enjoyable
Review: I am in total agreement with twim2, 6/8/99, it's a fictional novel people! It's intention is to entertain - which it did. I commend Mr. Means for his imagination and insight. Unlike most of the other reviews, I didn't have a hard time suspending belief, anything is possible when it comes to power and control. After all, we're human beings with flaws, not gods. In my opinion, if the nay sayers would see these historical figures as the human beings they were, their belief system wouldn't have been so affected. What I find fascinating is that the same individuals that found this book unbelievable and offensive, don't have a problem admiring actual history and the individuals involved. There was nothing and nobody to admire during that period of time. As a matter of fact, we're still seeing the dreadful affects of it. I highly recommend this book, and have done so many times - the people that read it agreed.
Rating:
Summary: AN INTERESTING TALE OF ALTERNATE HISTORY
Review: I enjoyed Mr. Means' work and could not put it down. I thought to be a well told story of what might have happened if the South had actually won the War Between the States. I found Spencer Jefferson Lee to be a most capable president and that his Black Vice President Nathan Winston was a good man. In the Separate but Equal Society that Mr. Means created, Blacks seemed to me to have opportunities than they had in the real post-bellum South. Vice President Winston had been a well known academic before assuming the Vice Presidency and his wife Lucinda was an equally well known professor at the National University of the South. The only thing I found even remotely wrong with the book was that the gaps in History from 1866-2000 (i.e. what happened during World War II and Vietnam?) could have been filled in just a little bit better. Reading this book reminded me of things that people tend to forget. There were Blacks that actually fought WILLINGLY for the Southern cause and that the attitudes of people in the North were just as racist if not more so. To me, the racism of people in the North was brought forth when Vice President Winston's son John Henry was kidnapped. I also got the idea that the gap between the two races was narrowing when I read about the developing relationship between Jason Lee and Lucy Winston. I would highly reccomend this book to anyone - Northerner or Southerner!
Rating: 
Summary: First book I ever tried to read, but was unable to finish!
Review: I picked this book up, and having read the jacket, subsequently expected an interesting alternate history. The idea was great, but the execution lacked. Little did I know it at the time, but later discovered that the author seemed to have had no intention of researching much of anything in order to make his work believable.I would recommend that for a similar book read Maya Angelou -- she's a better writer, and has produced more interesting social commentaries. For an interesting alternate history, keep looking. The title and packaging of this book are misleading and should be considered to be false advertising! Last night, I couldn't take it anymore and actually pictured myself pitching it into the garbage, not wanting to take up valuable shelf space with something I'll never finish (write off the 25 bucks to a very poor investment). Today, I realized that was outlandish, and something I would never do; however, I do intend to drop it off at the thrift store. Maybe someone else will want to waste their time reading it.
Rating:
Summary: Waiting for a Payoff
Review: I was intrigued by the concept of this book: a present-day world assuming the Confederacy had prevailed in the Civil War. The problem is that the book never pays off on the setup. I had to force myself to keep reading with the hope that an interesting story or compelling characters were just around the corner. After 100 pages, I gave up. I'd recommend Gore Vidal's Lincoln as an enjoyable read in historical fiction.
Rating:
Summary: A good story but severely lacking in research
Review: Means creates a good story but it's back drop is so putrid that it totally washes away any good. By page 67 I was saying I can't finish this book. However, I did force my way through it. So what is wrong with this book, please let me count the ways. First, The way he has the south winning is so totally laughable that it removes any acceptance of the book. His historical characters have absolutely nothing in common with their actual personalities. I mean to have Robert E Lee hang PoWs is just utterly amazing. I know this is fiction but in order for it to work it must have a basis in reality. Next to have someone stand up in the Confederate Congress in 1871 and say we must free the black man and treat him as an egual shows a complete lack of understanding of race relations in the 1800's. Historically, a Northern dominated Union fully believed it was their duty to look after the "Little Brown Brothers" of the world because they couldn't govern themselves. With this being the case a Confederacy is hardly going to be more tolerant. Finally Means shows a totaly disregard for any accuracy and show how little research he did by the office of President. He has the President of the Confederacy serving in the last year of his second term or his 7th year in office. According to the Confederate Constituion, the President was limited to one term of 6 years. This could have been a very good book with a little more research and a more plausible point of departure. p.s. One thing I have noticed is those reviewers who like this book are from the south while those who hated it are from the north. I wonder if that has any bearing.
Rating:
Summary: Thought-provoking and a gripping read
Review: Means' book is a provocative meditation on race in America, packaged in a compelling page-turner of a novel. The parallel worlds of white and black that have emerged from a Confederate victory in the Civil War are unveiled in an intriguingly gradual fashion, allowing the reader to ponder how this America is different from our own. The whole is packaged in a thriller whose pace never flags. I found myself thinking about how much race relations in our country actually do, in practice, resemble Means' fanatically separate but equal order. Highly recommended.
Rating: 
Summary: Pretty Much a Mess
Review: One wonders how much thought Means really put into "CSA". As far as alternate history goes, this is one of the rare novels which tries to look at how black-white relations might have evolved if the South had won the Civil War, but... Outside of that, the book is terribly sloppy. First, the premise of how the South wins and thoroughly destroys the Union is so implausible as to be laughable. Second, the separate-but-equal structure of the Confederacy that Means creates also strikes one as implausible, and one wonders where people other than whites and blacks fit into this society. Are they eligible to run for seats in the black House or white Senate? (Yes, each race gets its own chamber in the GSA legislature!) Third, although Means has created a history which is radically different from our own, he retains (as do many alternate history writers, and almost none of them successfully) too many artifacts from our own history which are unlikely to have existed in this other. These artifacts range from the trivial (product names such as "Visine") to the Earth-shaping (a fascist Germany led by someone named Hitler), but they all show a lack of serious thought. Too focused on one set of implications, he's lost sight of all the others.
Rating: 
Summary: Interesting and quite readable.
Review: Other reviews have focused on the impossibility (or improbability) of various aspects of the book blissfully unaware that much of history (particularly in war) is improbable. Would Judah Benjamin (a Jewish Confederate portrayed quite nicely here) have become such a hero? Perhaps. Certainly no one could have predicted that a 39 year old drunk failure could ascend to the Presidency or that the Army of Northern Virginia's plans for battle wrapped around a bunch of cigars would be dropped and fall into the hands of the Union officers at Sharpsburg. If anything, Means might be guilty of not being radical enough in his vision of what would have happened. Also, concerning the critiques which focus on the minutiae: without keeping the world similar to the one we now reside in, it would be quite impossible to tell a story like this without completely recreating or leaving everything so vague as to be unintelligible. (e.g. Cellular phones, the personal computer, jet engines, and jogging shoes would probably not exist or be much different from what we now recognize. But just how could one tell a story like this without them?) Anyway, for alt-history buffs this book might not measure up, but if you're a reader looking for something different which asks some pretty cool questions, pick it up.
Rating:
Summary: I love it !
Review: The plot is riveting and the language is sublime
Rating:
Summary: Unrealistic historical premise ruins good idea.
Review: The unbelievable form of Southern victory ruins what might have been an interesting, soul searching journy. For an alternitive history to be believable, an author must have the fictional charactors stay true to thier 'real world' self, as well as having the way history is changed be believable. Having Robert E. Lee hanging POW's as he burned New York City starts this book off on the wrong foot. Historically, it only gets worse. The author would have been well advised to see what the real R.E. Lee thought of hanging POW's. Had he done his research, he could have easily found other rebel leaders (sorry, as a re-enactor of the 12 US Infantry for over 15 years, those in gray are rebels.) who would do such ungentlemanly things. For the South to win the war in the way described in the book is laughable. The author should have stayed with the tried and true 'Southern Victory at Gettesburg or Antietem.'. His interesting victory distracts the reader. I found my self questioning everything. Was this believable? I could have\would have done ... . This made me resentfull and further re-enforced my belief that alternitive histories are best left to the writer for juvenilles who wishes to entice young readers to open thier minds. Sorry, the historical trash ruined a good idea; 'What if people beleived that seperate but equal was possible in some warped form.'.
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