Rating: 
Summary: Wonderful for Rebel apologists
Review: This book asks the reader to believe that in 1871 the victorious Southern Congress would not only give slaves their freedom and the vote, but control of the House of Representatives and half the country. This is only believable for Confederate apologists who want people to believe that slavery would have eventually "disappeared" somehow. Southerners in the mid-19th century believed blacks were subhuman. This book asks you to believe that they would ignore their beliefs and treat blacks "equally" just because they had a change of heart. This is more than nitpicking, as some reviewerers have suggested. Books like this have to have some small level of believability, otherwise why not change everything? Lets write a book where Robert E. Lee lives forever and everybody turns orange. It would be as believable as this book
Rating: 
Summary: Not bad!
Review: This book avoids the preachiness that usually accompanies any book about the Civil War, it's origins, and it's aftermath.Never mind that a victorious Confederacy would not have remained viable into the 20th century, Means is able to tell a good story in this very unusual setting.
Rating:
Summary: Waiting for a Payoff
Review: When I first saw the title "CSA" and read the summary of the plot, I felt I had to own this book. Alternative History is a fascinating subject, and I have always enjoyed this kind of speculative fiction. However, the premise for the creation of the Confederate States and the destruction of the North is so flimsy and historically unsound that the entire novel fell apart around it. Means starts the book with the assumption that the South won the war after 1865. Any historian can tell you that this would have been impossible. By 1864 the Cause of the Confederacy was lost, and no final, great display by Jefferson Davis in Richmond could have saved it. Lee's Army had crumbled to less than a quarter of Grant's by 1865, with desertions winnowing the number down every day. There is no concieveable way that the Army of Northern Virginia could have ressurected itself and conqured the North. If the setting for the Southern victory had taken place after a Lee victory at Gettysburg, the premise could have been kept up, but assuming the destruction of the USA after 1865? Please. Suspension of disbelief is one thing. Being asked to swallow this tripe is absurd. Based solely on that, I would recommend never picking up this book, but the story itself is just as awful. The CSA Means envisions seperates the races but makes them truly equal. But freedom in the South is a tenuous thing, and if you're bad, you're sent to the "badlands" of the industrial wassteland that is the North. The Vice-President's son(a mixed-up kid cliche), is kidnapped by an SLA-like northern group and taken to the former USA, where he learns that things like the mixing of the races and secular humanisim are all great things that the South has denied itself. No arguments from me about the positive aspects of TRUE racial equality and whatnot, but he becomes a Patty Hearst type, falling in with his kidnappers. The book offers no real insight into the workings of the CSA, except for a few token paragraphs about how the President is always white, the Veep always black, and how the two chambers of Congress are one white and one black. Also, the University of Virginia built an identical campus just for blacks, and it can be assumed that these Jim Crow-esque rules apply accross this nation. It's all rather sad, as the opportunity to explore what a real victorious South would be like are lost. Why would the North, with all it's resources, be turned into a wasteland by the South? Why would everyone be so happy with segregation? Means seems to think that race relations in the South would be better than our current state of affairs because seperate but equal is truly achieved. But come on! Assuming that the South won, wouldn't slavery, although logically eventually abolished, last longer, and wouldn't the kind of seperation depicted in the novel be impossible in a South that would have been slave-free for such a short amount of time? CSA paints the Confederate cause as flawed but right, which is downright stupid. The book insulted my intelligence again and again. For a good review of what a victorious South would look like, see Harry Turtledove's "Great War" series, which starts with the excellent "How Few Remain". He paints a much more realistic portrait of Southern victory, which results in a CSA and USA, which is what the South wanted, anyway. Read that series, which paints vivid portraits of historical and fictional charachters, not this mess of a novel that had me itching for my $4.99 back.
Rating:
Summary: Don't Judge a Book by it's Cover
Review: When I first saw the title "CSA" and read the summary of the plot, I felt I had to own this book. Alternative History is a fascinating subject, and I have always enjoyed this kind of speculative fiction. However, the premise for the creation of the Confederate States and the destruction of the North is so flimsy and historically unsound that the entire novel fell apart around it. Means starts the book with the assumption that the South won the war after 1865. Any historian can tell you that this would have been impossible. By 1864 the Cause of the Confederacy was lost, and no final, great display by Jefferson Davis in Richmond could have saved it. Lee's Army had crumbled to less than a quarter of Grant's by 1865, with desertions winnowing the number down every day. There is no concieveable way that the Army of Northern Virginia could have ressurected itself and conqured the North. If the setting for the Southern victory had taken place after a Lee victory at Gettysburg, the premise could have been kept up, but assuming the destruction of the USA after 1865? Please. Suspension of disbelief is one thing. Being asked to swallow this tripe is absurd. Based solely on that, I would recommend never picking up this book, but the story itself is just as awful. The CSA Means envisions seperates the races but makes them truly equal. But freedom in the South is a tenuous thing, and if you're bad, you're sent to the "badlands" of the industrial wassteland that is the North. The Vice-President's son(a mixed-up kid cliche), is kidnapped by an SLA-like northern group and taken to the former USA, where he learns that things like the mixing of the races and secular humanisim are all great things that the South has denied itself. No arguments from me about the positive aspects of TRUE racial equality and whatnot, but he becomes a Patty Hearst type, falling in with his kidnappers. The book offers no real insight into the workings of the CSA, except for a few token paragraphs about how the President is always white, the Veep always black, and how the two chambers of Congress are one white and one black. Also, the University of Virginia built an identical campus just for blacks, and it can be assumed that these Jim Crow-esque rules apply accross this nation. It's all rather sad, as the opportunity to explore what a real victorious South would be like are lost. Why would the North, with all it's resources, be turned into a wasteland by the South? Why would everyone be so happy with segregation? Means seems to think that race relations in the South would be better than our current state of affairs because seperate but equal is truly achieved. But come on! Assuming that the South won, wouldn't slavery, although logically eventually abolished, last longer, and wouldn't the kind of seperation depicted in the novel be impossible in a South that would have been slave-free for such a short amount of time? CSA paints the Confederate cause as flawed but right, which is downright stupid. The book insulted my intelligence again and again. For a good review of what a victorious South would look like, see Harry Turtledove's "Great War" series, which starts with the excellent "How Few Remain". He paints a much more realistic portrait of Southern victory, which results in a CSA and USA, which is what the South wanted, anyway. Read that series, which paints vivid portraits of historical and fictional charachters, not this mess of a novel that had me itching for my $4.99 back.
Rating: 
Summary: This book was a fair possible history.
Review: While failing to live up to For Want of a Nail for in depth political and economic history, CSA manages to bring the reader inside the political machinations of the fictional government of the Confederate States of America. Some problems that I had with the novel were the choices of Confederate Presidents: Lee, Longstreet, Garland, Wheeler, Wilson, etc., were predictable and trite, considering how much allohistorical fiction has been written on the subject of the Civil War. Overall, the portrayal of the Presidential scandals, the President's dealings with Congress, and the controversial establishment of a Confederate Supreme Court were well-handled and interesting. Four stars.
Rating:
Summary: Intriguing Premise, Shaky Plotline
Review: While other reviewers focused on the historical implausabilities of the plot, to me the most intriguing thing about the book is that it posits that blacks would have been much better off if the South had won the war. The blacks in the fictional CSA have a large professional class, a great deal of wealth and are every bit the equals of whites in science and in business. There's none of the awkwardness, divisiveness and resentment that marks current racial attitudes. There's no underclass, and at the end of the book we get the sense that the races are headed towards integration. It's a pretty radical premise. The plot itself is quite awkward-- we don't see much in the way of motivation for John Henry running away to join DRAGO, (or why other blacks don't seem as bothered as he is) and the Lucy-Jason romance can be seen a mile off. There are also lots of holes in the historical plot-- Means makes no mention of how the separate-but-equal society handles TV, movies, music and the like. He also has the CSA marginalize anyone who is less than 77% racially "pure." But the black elite (before and after the Civil War) was comprised mostly of mixed-race, light-skinned blacks-- Means doesn't mention what happened to them. He also doesn't fill us in on population data- blacks are around 25% of the population of the current USA-- how outnumbered are they in his CSA? The book is a quick read, and I'd pick it up for the questions it raises. Too bad it leaves so many of them unanswered.
Rating:
Summary: Interesting to a point
Review: Writers stack the deck against themselves when they venture into "Alternate History." Readers don¹t know much history, and so the ironies of all your lovely and clever variations may be lost on them. There is bitter comedy in seeing Abraham Lincoln released from chains in Richmond, only to be sent to Springfield, Illinois where he is sentenced to the ultimate horror. Living with his wife. Funny, but you have to know the players to fully appreciate it.Author Howard Means does come up with some interesting spins on the old "If-The-South-Had-Won-The-War" gambit in his new novel, C.S.A. But he stumbles in his major alternative premise.I can accept Judah Benjamin breezing through the blockade to England where he wraps up a deal with the British to support of the Confederate cause. Sounds like something Judah might do.And I can accept that Jefferson Davis on a bad day during the fall of Richmond might set himself on fire. Death before dishonor and all that. I can even see Bobby Lee driven mad enough to hang some Union generals. No doubt they deserved it. And I find it quite acceptable to conceive that the South would have been just as cruel to the "Northern Provinces" had roles been reversed.But I must holler "hold, enough" when Means tries to sell us on his Confederate design for living between white and black people in which the concept of "Separate But Equal" is carried to silly and unbelievable extremes. Now, after 130 years an underground protest group called DRAGO is finally moved to stir up interracial trouble. And this comes a a big surprise to our 65 year old separate but equal African-American Vice President of the Confederacy and his close friend the President who is well meaning but white.Sorry, can¹t buy it. Alternate history yes, but not alternate human nature.Still there is good stuff in this novel. Author Means has a neat, quirky mind. His dialogue crackles and often zig-zags off in delightfully unexpected ways. His details of character and interior monologues make his people come alive so that, despite shaky situational premises, we care about them and turn the pages to see what happens next.However there are technical problems that often haunt beginning novelists. Means will introduce an avalanche of characters early on without giving them enough in the way of markers or tags. Thus a chapter or two later you are suppose to remember who "Howard" is or was, without any reminders. An editor should have caught this. Also there are jerky shifts in character point of view within a scene, again a surprising editorial lapse in a novel from a major publisher.Howard Means is a good writer with talent and fresh ideas. I wish him well and hope his next novel will have a more coherent premise and better editors
Rating:
Summary: What if, what isn't
Review: You see the books on the shelves all the time....What if the South won the war.... You either think of it as racist propaganda, leftist militia wingnut garbage or even real softie the world is better for it new age garbage but Howard Means portrait of the Modern day Confederate States of America was neither better nor worse than the world of today just different. The dynamics of the white house occupants and their families in an equally racially divided society was intriguing. No great wrongs were righted no crusades were undertaken but the culmination of a first step.
Rating:
Summary: What if, what isn't
Review: You see the books on the shelves all the time....What if the South won the war.... You either think of it as racist propaganda, leftist militia wingnut garbage or even real softie the world is better for it new age garbage but Howard Means portrait of the Modern day Confederate States of America was neither better nor worse than the world of today just different. The dynamics of the white house occupants and their families in an equally racially divided society was intriguing. No great wrongs were righted no crusades were undertaken but the culmination of a first step.
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