Abigail's review
Confederates in the Attic: Dispatches from the Unfinished Civil War by Tony Horwitz
Horwitz presents a balanced and very readable account of his travels around the states of the Confederacy in a book that covers race relations, regional identity, and historical memory in the American South. The Civil War buffs he encounters are all looking for something: a connection to their ancestors, a sense of pride, a tie to the land, a time when the South was prosperous, a way to make sense out of the vicious and bloody battles that raged in their backyards. Many of the Southern white Civil War fanatics that Horwitz interviews talk about feeling oppressed by the North, something that I never really thought about, though we Yankess do certainly perpetuate stereotypes and prejudices. The language that continues to be used by some Southerners to express this feeling -- "the only good Yankee is a dead Yankee" sort of thing is scary, but much more shocking is the racist backlash that Horwitz finds in some Southern towns. There, whites, who now feel oppressed by the North...more
