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Spying on the South: Travels with Frederick Law Olmsted in a Fractured Land

Tony Horwitz (Goodreads Author)

4.02 · Rating details · 1,526 ratings · 293 reviews

Beloved best-selling author Tony Horwitz retraces Frederick Law Olmsted's epic journey across the American South in the 1850s, as he too searches for common ground in a dangerously riven nation.

On the eve of the Civil War, an up-and-coming newspaper, the New York Times, sent a young travel writer to explore the South, which was alien territory to the Connecticut Yankee Beloved best-selling author Tony Horwitz retraces Frederick Law Olmsted's epic journey across the American South in the 1850s, as he too searches for common ground in a dangerously riven nation.

On the eve of the Civil War, an up-and-coming newspaper, the New York Times, sent a young travel writer to explore the South, which was alien territory to the Connecticut Yankee correspondent and to his Northern readers. Identified in the paper as "Yeoman," to protect his identity, the writer roamed eleven states and six thousand miles, jolting the nation with his dispatches about slavery and the extremism of its defenders.

This extraordinary journey would also re-shape the nation's landscape, driving "Yeoman"--real name Frederick Law Olmsted--to embark on his career as America's first and foremost architect of urban parks and other public spaces.

Over a century and half later, there are echoes of the pre-Civil War in the angry ferment and fracturing of our own time. Is America still one country? Tony Horwitz, like Olmsted a Yankee and roving scribe, sets forth to find out by retracing Yeoman's journey through the South. Following his route and whenever possible his mode of transport--rail, riverboats, in the saddle--Horwitz travels Appalachia, down the Ohio and Mississippi, through Kentucky, Tennessee, Louisiana, and across Texas to the Rio Grande. Venturing, as Olmsted did, far off the beaten paths, Horwitz discovers colorful traces of an old weird America, shocking vestiges of the Cotton Kingdom, and strange new mutations that have sprung from its roots.

The result is a masterpiece in the tradition of Great Plains, Bad Land, and the author's own classic, Confederates in the Attic. Spying on the South is an intrepid, wise, and frequently hilarious expedition through an outsized landscape and its equally outsized state of mind. It is also a probing and poignant study of the young Olmsted, whose own life, and thinking about landscape and society, would be forever altered by his Southern odyssey. ...more

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Hardcover, 476 pages

Published May 14th 2019 by Penguin Press

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Aug 23, 2019 Diane S ☔ rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: lor-2019, 5000-2019

Reading this last book by Horowitz was bittersweet, and since he narrated his own book it was even more special. Following a journey by Frederick Olmstead that he had undertaken between 1852 through 1857 through our southern states, Tony sets out to duplicate this journey as much as was possible. Olmstead took this journey to investigate the slave economy, dispatches he sent back to the Times.

So in-between quotes from Olmstead on his discoveries, we see how much of how little things have changed Reading this last book by Horowitz was bittersweet, and since he narrated his own book it was even more special. Following a journey by Frederick Olmstead that he had undertaken between 1852 through 1857 through our southern states, Tony sets out to duplicate this journey as much as was possible. Olmstead took this journey to investigate the slave economy, dispatches he sent back to the Times.

So in-between quotes from Olmstead on his discoveries, we see how much of how little things have changed in the intervening years. As you can imagine much had changed, buildings gone or renovated, previous occupations no longer viable, but Tony dies a great job following his journey as he could. Traveling on the Ohio River by barge, visiting towns, Olmstead had visited, plantations or at least the land where they once stood, San Antonio and the Alamo, Arcadia Southern Louisiana, comparing Olmsteads reflections with his own.

It was the people he talked too, he has the knack of asking the right questions to elicit honest answers, that I most enjoyed. Needless to say in this country if our he ran into some real characters. A man who talked him into going out to the river/swamp at night to try to shoot bars with a crossbow. Hard can reach up to six feet and have huge, sharp teeth and an impaling protuberance on their face. The food he described and the effects of eating such was also humorous. There was much humor here, but none so both funny and frightening as the mule trip through the hill country in Texas that he took on mule with an irascible handler named Buck. Parts just had me giggling.

I also appreciated that he, for the most part, kept his personal opinions out of his discoveries, trusting that the reader was able to form their own opinions. That we are a nation divided by thoughts, beliefs, and the wanted role of our government, a nation of differing opinions is without doubt. After reading this I am more convinced of this than ever. A truly satisfying, informative and entertaining read.

ARC from Edelweiss. ...more

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May 31, 2019 Leslie Ray rated it liked it

Tony Horowitz follows the path of Frederick Olmsted, who was a writer for the then, New York Daily Times, who wrote about his trips to the South, in the 1850's. Olmsted made 2 trips, of which Horowitz chose to follow the second journey that took place in 1853-4. This 2nd trip from Maryland through West Virginia, on the Mississippi River through Louisiana and finally to Texas, was the one that this book follows as the author manages to seek out, in some cases, the most idiosyncratic and eccentric ...more

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May 22, 2019 H. P. rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: non-fiction

I love Tony Horwitz’s nonfiction. He has a simple formula: he picks some interesting, underappreciated bit of history, then explores the modern day geography. The result is a mix of travelogue and history as Horwitz interweaves his own adventures with the history. His best known work is Confederates in the Attic, and I was beyond overjoyed when I saw that he was returning to the South.

Spying on the South retraces the steps of Frederick Olmstead on a pre-Civil War trip through the South. (It wasn I love Tony Horwitz’s nonfiction. He has a simple formula: he picks some interesting, underappreciated bit of history, then explores the modern day geography. The result is a mix of travelogue and history as Horwitz interweaves his own adventures with the history. His best known work is Confederates in the Attic, and I was beyond overjoyed when I saw that he was returning to the South.

Spying on the South retraces the steps of Frederick Olmstead on a pre-Civil War trip through the South. (It wasn’t my focus or his, but Horwitz’s portrait of a young Olmstead, well before his days as a famed landscape artists, is delightful.) Horwitz alternates historical tidbits with his own misadventures. I said travelogue, but that undersells it. How many travelogues include one leg by coal barge and another by mule? The real joy of these sections are the people Horwitz meets along the way. He treats them with dignity and humanity, and their disparate stories will do far more to flesh out hillbillies and white working class Americans for the person who entry to the field was Hillbilly Elegy than a work like, say, Appalachian Reckoning.

I should make clear, though, that this is not a work that primarily focuses on hillbillies. Horwitz starts in West Virginia, but he also spends time in Kentucky, Tennessee, along the Mississippi, in Louisiana, Texas, and on the Texas-Mexico border. I was disappointed to learn that Horwitz only covers the “there” (not the “back again”) of Olmstead’s second trip. He leaves out, then, stops in Chattanooga, Asheville, and Abingdon that would have been of particular interest to me. And I loved the book, but the West Virginia chapter makes me really wish Horwitz had written a book on Appalachia and the Rust Belt instead.

Olmstead made his journeys through the South a mere decade before the Civil War. It wasn’t a pleasure trip: he sent regular dispatches back to New York for newspaper publication, and he collected and edited those dispatches into a three-volume book (since Horwitz skips the return journey with its long leg through Appalachia, I’m going to pick up the third volume, A Journey in the Back Country). Olmstead intended to foster dialogue in a country sharply divided; instead he came to see the South as intransigent and became radicalized (he would later moderate and arguably betray his principles by designed segregated spaces in the South).

As the subtitle suggests, Horwitz also takes an odyssey across the American divide. His experience writing Confederates in the Attic notwithstanding, Horwitz is open about how little he knows about the territory he covers, especially Texas. The people he meets are very much foreign to him—culturally, politically, and economically.

Spying on the South seems well-timed, and it is, but it isn’t directly a response to Trump. Horwitz sets off on his journey in West Virginia before the 2016 primaries even started. As the narrative and timeline progress, Trump begins to intrude, but Horwitz does an admirable job not using him as a crutch.

This is Horwitz’s most political and most pessimistic book, but it still has everything that makes his other books so special. The coal barge highlights “a good living for country boys” where they “can still work from the neck down.” A sojourn at a weekend devoted to mudding and Horwitz’s misadventures on a mule are enormously entertaining. Horwitz humanizes the people of the Red States he crosses throughout. Among other things, Horwitz’s narrative highlights the cultural diversity of the Red States. West Virginia is very different than Cajun Louisiana is very different than rural east Texas is very different from the Texas-Mexico border. The focus is rural, with cities like Nashville and Houston getting short shrift. The economic contrast between the rural Appalachia and South and the cities of Texas is stark.

Horwitz works hard to see the best in people, but the South has an ugly history with race, in a place where “the past is never dead. It’s not even past.” Horwitz goes on plantation tours that somehow manage to avoid any mention of slavery in Mississippi and is subjected to racial slurs by Texans who insist there is a camp of Muslim insurgents in their rural county (Horwitz, who worked extensively in the Middle East as a journalist, offers to go check it out). His story of a slaveholder who attempted to join in political reform after the Civil War ends in the slaughter of dozens of African-Americans.

Spying on the South may not be Horwitz’s most enjoyable book, but it is his most relevant to what I am doing here. It is the sort of book that the working class-curious neophyte ought to read, and early. Even if you aren’t so culturally conscious, you are sure to learn something from the history side. ...more

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Apr 29, 2019 Bruce Katz rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: american-history

I could have gone to a 4 but really, 3 means 'I liked it,' so I'll leave it like that. Horwitz is a fine companion as he follows in the pre-civil war footsteps of Frederick Law Olmstead through the South. Olmstead was archly anti-slavery. He traveled the south as a correspondent for what was then the New York Daily Times, trying to understand the people who defended slavery and seemed to live in such a different world than his. (Later, of course, he became the country's foremost landscape I could have gone to a 4 but really, 3 means 'I liked it,' so I'll leave it like that. Horwitz is a fine companion as he follows in the pre-civil war footsteps of Frederick Law Olmstead through the South. Olmstead was archly anti-slavery. He traveled the south as a correspondent for what was then the New York Daily Times, trying to understand the people who defended slavery and seemed to live in such a different world than his. (Later, of course, he became the country's foremost landscape architect -- though he hated the term -- and became world-renowned as the creator of New York City's Central Park.) Horwitz has a similar objective as he makes his way through modern polarized America, trying to explore what has changed since Olmstead's days , what echoes, and what truly remains.

I enjoyed the book, as I have others Horwitz has written, but I felt him less than successful in shedding any light on the southern mind, new or old. Unsurprisingly, he encountered some truly interesting (another reader might prefer 'audacious,' 'idiosyncratic,' or 'odd,' or just plain 'truly f-ed up') characters. Several really stand out, but I think my favorite are the people he met at a monster truck mud course. That, I'm certain, will be an experience Horwitz will long remember (along with the ill-fated mule riding adventure). But the parallel treks never quite coalesce into a revealing depiction of southern culture, at least not for me. The book struck me as a bit too peripatetic. Nor was the integration of his own experiences with those of Olmstead as seamless and revealing as I would have hoped. I came away with a strong feeling that he learned a lot more in his travels than he was able to express. He recently had an article in the Times with the headline, "Can Bar-Stool Democracy Save America?" I hope to see more such pieces.

As I said, though, Horwitz is a fun guide, self-deprecating, smart, and adventurous. His adventures were fun to read. And I have to admit, he's a lot braver than I am.

Addendum: Sadly, Tony Horwitz passed away on May 27. He will be missed. ...more

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Jul 05, 2019 Christine rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: race-issues, history-america, reporting, politics, travel

America lost something great when Tony Horowitz died in May 2019. When you read this book, you are made painfully aware of that fact. Horowitz possessed not only ability to get people to talk to and with him, but also to capture them on the page. Reading this book, you realize how rare and powerful that skill is.

Spying on the South is on one level a recreation of Frederick Olmstead’s journey to report on the South prior to the Civil War. Much of it was done during the 2016 election, and, America lost something great when Tony Horowitz died in May 2019. When you read this book, you are made painfully aware of that fact. Horowitz possessed not only ability to get people to talk to and with him, but also to capture them on the page. Reading this book, you realize how rare and powerful that skill is.

Spying on the South is on one level a recreation of Frederick Olmstead’s journey to report on the South prior to the Civil War. Much of it was done during the 2016 election, and, therefore, the book also shows the divided country.

His journey starts on Amtrak’s Capitol limited which follows the old B&O route. The reader is quickly treated to a wonderful conversation with Donald Handy, a salesman who not only is a good salesman but also compares writing to his work. In West Virginia, Horowitz examines the coal industry, and how coal, or perhaps the memory of coal, still runs the state. He includes as well the men who run the ships who move the coal. What Horowitz does in the book is capture what people say and think, but with a minimum of judgement. This is perfectly done in the section about coal where Horowitz represents the declining coal industry as well as the desperation of those who used to work in.

The great thing about Horowitz is that he is able to change the stereotype that many people have of the South (and of the North because he represents the North). He shows us a West Virginian who points out that coal is a legacy of exploitation and is a class issue. He is upset and worried that his state is ruled by coal, that in some ways they have given up their independence. There are Texans who point out the those at the Alamo were the illegal immigrants of their day and that it is something we should remember.

His even-handed approach is so prevalent that when the word bigoted is used to describe someone’s rhetoric, it stands out. It makes the description more powerful because it is used so sparingly.

One of the most interesting and telling aspects of Horowitz’s trip is when he boards the American Queen, a tourist cruise boat that goes down the Mississippi river. The cruise includes day trips to plantations and most strangely, disturbingly to Angola Prison. The reflection of how many, not all but many, of the stops gloss over slavery as well as the sense of a caste system on the boat take up much of this section and raise some very good points about how we cover history.

This conflict about reality and history also includes forgotten massacres that are remembered but not really, including people in Texas who were actually pro-Union and killed for it during the Civil War.

When you reach the end of this book, you are left wishing Horowitz was still alive to write more because while he records the bad, he also records the good and that gives us hope.

...more

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May 30, 2019 Jessica rated it it was amazing

I had 12 pages to go in Spying on the South when my best friend texted me that Tony Horwitz had died.

"I'm so sorry. I know you loved him. I loved him too." I was going to lend her the pre-publication copy I'd gotten through goodreads. I'll still send it to her but she will have to give it back. It's marked up and underlined with stars and exclamation points in the margins. I circled places Olmstead had passed through where I'd lived before and places I want to go to some day. I'd scribbled in ...more

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Aug 20, 2019 thefourthvine rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: non-fiction, travel-essays

This is a typical Tony Horwitz book (and his last; I was sad to learn that he died while on tour for this book). He travels! He chats with people! (He must have been the foremost chatter of our time.) He draws conclusions!

This one, since it is about both Fredrick Law Olmstead’s travels in the South right before the Civil War, and Horwitz’s own travels along the same route right before the election of Donald Trump, is, in places, really painful to read. Horwitz quotes extensively from Olmstead’s ...more

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Jun 07, 2019 Angus McKeogh rated it really liked it

Another really great read. Two in a row. Delves into the underlying psyche and current of the Southern culture. Similarities and differences between the present and the time of the Civil War. Demonstrates how some things, ideas, and ethics within the culture show very little progress from the attitudes that existed during the Civil War. Horwitz shadows Olmsted’s trek through the South in the 1850s. It’s expected how much has changed and it’s telling how much hasn’t.

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May 02, 2019 Paul rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Olmsted on one side, 2016 on the other, and Horwitz in the middle. I’ve read four of his other works and this is a much more immediate view of history and the United States than the other books. It is view of many things: the legacy of the Alamo, the struggling coal industry, modern tourism, and a man who changed the way cities and recreation spaces are built in this country. But the narrative kept going back to the way history endures through many people’s eyes.

4.5 out of 5 stars

For my full ...more

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Jul 02, 2019 Kristy Miller rated it liked it

Shelves: non-fiction, history, giveaways, travel, arc

I received a copy of this book in a Goodreads Giveaway in exchange for a fair review.

I first found Tony Horwitz a few years back, when my book club read Confederates in the Attic: Dispatches from the Unfinished Civil War. I quickly became a huge fan of Mr. Horwitz, and have collected/read several other books by him since then. I was devastated when Mr. Horwitz died suddenly on his tour for this book. This, and life in general, slowed my progress with this book, but I am happy to report that I ...more

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Jun 23, 2019 Brian rated it it was amazing

Such a fun, witty, entertaining, and informative book - but also a very bittersweet read with the author's recent, unexpected death. Mostly a travelogue, partly a biography of Frederick Olmsted (designer of Central Park) - it really didn't veer into politics as often as you might think from the title, and never comes across as snide or condescending. Sharing the author's political leanings, it was very enjoyable for me to read Horwitz's "reports" from the part of the world where I live, ...more

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Dec 22, 2019 Carole rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: non-fiction

In his last book before his untimely passing, Horwitz traces the routes Olmsted traveled in the 1850s as a reporter for a New York newspaper. He was probing the Southern slave culture with his ailing brother, and they engaged the local populace with curiosity and some astonishment. A hundred and sixty years later, Horwitz tries to follow the route as closely as possible, including some adventurous segments taken on a barge as well as on horseback. Horwitz has a remarkable ability to draw out ...more

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May 20, 2019 Gretchen Stokes rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

A truly human tour of the south, guided by a historical journey. Tony Horwitz applies his historically astute writing to a modern picture of various regions of the south. He crafts a whole cloth out of a hugely varied cast of characters, and somehow tells an engrossing and cohesive story.

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Jul 19, 2019 Rita Ciresi rated it it was amazing

I finished this compelling travelogue weeks ago, but put off writing a review as I didn't want to acknowledge that this would be the last journey I'd ever get to take with the late Tony Horwitz as my guide. My enjoyment of this crazy, wild ride through the contemporary south was tinged with sadness that this kind, compassionate, and talented writer passed away so early and unexpectedly.

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Aug 07, 2019 Barbara rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Spying on The South is a wonderful journey following the steps of Frederick Olmsted as he traveled in the South on the eve of the Civil War. Reporting for the New York Times he sought dialogue from slaveowners and slaves, hoping that through conversation secession could be averted. This quest to end slavery, as well as his appreciation for the natural beauty he encountered, had a great impact on his yet unknown career as a world famous landscape designer.

Tony Horwitz replicates Olmsted's trek Spying on The South is a wonderful journey following the steps of Frederick Olmsted as he traveled in the South on the eve of the Civil War. Reporting for the New York Times he sought dialogue from slaveowners and slaves, hoping that through conversation secession could be averted. This quest to end slavery, as well as his appreciation for the natural beauty he encountered, had a great impact on his yet unknown career as a world famous landscape designer.

Tony Horwitz replicates Olmsted's trek through Appalachia, down the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers, and into Louisiana and Texas. As Olmsted had, he interviews people from all walks of life with compassion and an open mind. I gained understanding and insights into why these people think so differently from me. Yet, it was sad to realize that the political and cultural divide is as great now as it was during Olmsted's travels.

Frederick Olmsted was a good example of the adage, We are a sum total of all our experiences." From his belief in freedom for all to his expansive landscape designs that allowed freedom of movement and a "venue to elevate and assimilate the masses and force into contact the rich and the powerful, the highbrow and low" his message resonates. His appreciation for the terrain he saw would also be seen in his later park designs. As the author meandered through The Ramble, a section of Central Park well-loved by Olmsted, elements of the Southern landscape were visible. "Its lush and aromatic density felt more like Louisiana or the Carolina Low Country than the mid-Atlantic, and the plantings included swamp magnolia, a tree he admired on his journey. The rustic benches and bridges were made of Alabama cedar." In other areas of the park lagoon-like water features and allees have the feel of the plantations he visited.

This is an amazing book that anyone who loves great writing, a humorous travelogue of the U.S., political parallels, or adventures of a famous architect would enjoy. I am saddened to know that the author died shortly after the publication of this book. I came to know him as a witty and intelligent friend. ...more

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Oct 01, 2019 Pam rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

This was a terrific book and I am so sorry that it was his last. I love travel books like "Travels with Charley" by Steinbeck and "Blue Highways" by William Heat Moon and this book was similar to those. However the addition of his travels tracing the journey made by Frederick Law Olmsted as an undercover correspondent for the New York Tmes 160 years previously made a wonderful contrast and added a lot of history. I learned a lot as an armchair traveler! I fortunately still have books to read by ...more

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May 22, 2019 Kelly rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. I always love a good road trip with Tony Horwitz. However, the title of this book is a little deceptive, because it is only about half about the South. Or at least about the Deep South.

Horwitz follows the route of New England native Frederick Law Olmstead from West Virginia to Mexico. There is a good bit about West Virginia to start (which is only sort of the south, in my opinion), with some briefer travels in Kentucky, Tennessee, Mississippi and Louisiana. Then the last third of the book is ...more

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Sep 06, 2019 Sandi Banks rated it really liked it · review of another edition

I feel very sad that Tony Horwitz recently died too soon at 60 years old. I was anxious to read this book because I have liked others he has written. Others books he has written include Blue Latitudes and Confederates in the Attic. I give it 4.5. Horwitz followed part of the journey Frederick Olmsted the designer of Central Park, as young man prior to the Civil War.
It was an ambitious project to follow Olmsted “footsteps” as much over 150 years later. Horwitz has some real challenges and ...more

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Jan 12, 2020 John rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: history, ebooks, travel, library_books

Want to say at the outset that I read much of the book several weeks ago, coming back to it for the last few chapters recently. So, I don't have a lot of specific recollection here.

Horwitz does a great job integrating Olmstead's historical observations with his own modern ones. His tagging along on river boats today hauling coal gave an insight into American society not easily available to non-locals. Likewise, it was quite interesting getting the non-white points-of-view during the Mississippi ...more

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Jun 02, 2019 Scott Leffler rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

The only thing bad about this book, his last. Tony Horwitz died 5-27-19.
All of his books are highly recommended.

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Oct 13, 2019 Fred Forbes rated it really liked it · review of another edition

I have read a number of Tony's works over the years, found him to be an informative and entertaining journalist. Sad to note that my purchase of this one was triggered by news of his death at age 60 due to cardiac arrest in MD near where I grew up. He was there to speak at "Politics and Prose" one of my favorite bookstores. Doubly depressing to see authors pass away at an early age as they achieve notable success like Vince Flynn (Mitch Rapp series) and Stieg Larsson (Girl with the Dragon ...more

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Jul 28, 2019 Mel Travis rated it really liked it · review of another edition

I learned so much about Frederick Law Olmsted from this book. It was interesting and also terrifying seeing the similarities between pre Civil War south and our country today.

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Jun 28, 2019 Chris Shores rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Tony Horwitz was at his best when he blended history and journalism to tell us of our country’s past and present. He excels at this in his final journey: “Spying on the South,” which was published just weeks before his death. The book is a mix of history lesson and travelogue as Horwitz follows in the path of landscape architect Fredrick Law Olmsted’s journeys through antebellum south. Each chapter includes part of Olmsted’s trip followed by Horwitz’ 21st-century odyssey. There are plenty of ...more

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Jun 22, 2019 Randy rated it liked it · review of another edition

It must be fun to be a writer like Tony Horowitz who has had enough success that he can pitch an idea like retracing the route through the South that Frederick Law Olmstead took prior to the Civil War and reporting on that book and what is happening now. An unknown writer with this idea would have to finance it on his own but I’m certain that Horowitz got a big advance and could take his time. Spying on the South is a bit of a reprise of Confederates in the Attic, another book I liked, but this It must be fun to be a writer like Tony Horowitz who has had enough success that he can pitch an idea like retracing the route through the South that Frederick Law Olmstead took prior to the Civil War and reporting on that book and what is happening now. An unknown writer with this idea would have to finance it on his own but I’m certain that Horowitz got a big advance and could take his time. Spying on the South is a bit of a reprise of Confederates in the Attic, another book I liked, but this time the route of travel is different.

There’s a reason Horowitz gets the big advances. He’s a good writer and observer. I enjoyed Spying on the South but I don’t think it’s his strongest outing. It’s educational, none the less. For example, I did not know that Olmstead had a writing career prior to becoming famous for Central Park. I didn’t know that he was an active abolitionist although I did know that he ran the Sanitary Commission during the Civil War.

The problem here is that this trip (Horowitz’s version) just isn’t as interesting as his Confederates in the Attic trip or the one that generated Blue Latitudes. We meet lots of southerners, mostly Trump supporters, who don’t have much money and spend what the do have on Redneck activities like running high powered trucks through a mud park. It’s all a bit too much of the Southern/Texan stereotype.

There’s a part of the book where Horowitz hires a guide for a mule back trip along part of Olmstead’s route. It started to remind me a bit of Rinker Buck’s Oregon Trail book. I should listen again to that part of the book because I think it only lasted a couple of days but Horowitz milked it for a long chapter.

Again, a skilled and successful writer who has reached the point where he can pretty much do what he wants and write about it. Not to beat a dead mule, but I think Horowitz’s best book is Midnight Rising, the story about John Brown (Horowitz seems fascinated by the South and the Civil War).

Note: writing this I was not aware that Tony Horowitz had recently collapsed and died at the very young age of 60. ...more

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Jun 10, 2019 Mike Zickar rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: history, memoir

A very enjoyable trek through much of the South (WV to KY to Louisiana to TX) following the footsteps of a trip that Frederick Law Olmstead took in the 1850s, trying to understand the pre-Civil War South. The book has a bittersweet note to it, knowing that this is likely the last book that Tony Horowitz wrote.

The book excels at Horowitz's random exploring and ability to reach out and get everyday people to talk to a stranger and his ability to seek meaning in the everyday conversations he has ...more

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Jun 04, 2019 Bill FromPA rated it liked it

Shelves: non-fiction, library

This was something of a slog for me. Though overall it’s well written, there’s not much momentum from chapter to chapter; I found my interest alternately engaged and disengaged as Horwitz moved from subject to subject, situation to situation.

Horwitz’s writing combines the scholarly minutiae and careful exposition of the study (or, as it often feels, the library carrel) with the immediate perceptions and improvisatory connections of the open road. These modes alternate throughout this book; his This was something of a slog for me. Though overall it’s well written, there’s not much momentum from chapter to chapter; I found my interest alternately engaged and disengaged as Horwitz moved from subject to subject, situation to situation.

Horwitz’s writing combines the scholarly minutiae and careful exposition of the study (or, as it often feels, the library carrel) with the immediate perceptions and improvisatory connections of the open road. These modes alternate throughout this book; his primary historical subject is the life and accomplishments of Frederick Law Olmstead and his hands-on project is a 2015-16 re-tracing some of Olmstead’s journeys through the antebellum South.

His stated purpose in this undertaking is to explore “the nation’s enduring fault line – between free and slave states in his time, and red and blue states in mine.”

Was the nation unraveling into hostile confederacies? Had that happened already?

The view from my barn-office in New England didn’t offer any answers.

His re-creation of Olmstead’s travels at times takes on the aspect of “stunt journalism”, as when he unrealistically attempts to re-create not just the itinerary of the 19th century traveler but the means of transport as well. Thus, he ends up hitching a ride on a coal barge tow to travel the Ohio river (a strategy which does not, in the end, take him to his destination) and attempting to travel through parts of Texas by mule (though admittedly his account of this last attempt turns out to be what is probably the best chapter, for reasons discussed below).

The book scholar / road scholar duality reaches an absurd contrast in Colfax, LA, where, after movingly recounting a massacre by Confederate veterans of freedmen seeking to retain their Reconstruction-era civil rights, Horwitz attends “mudfest”, a weeklong monster truck rally on the grounds of a former cotton plantation. Though Confederate flags are prominent at this event, it’s hard to see how this overlong chapter contributes to an exploration of the nation’s ideological divide – I’m sure something similarly pointless and indulgent could have been found in a blue state. Horwitz’ companion at mudfest, Australian TV personality Andrew Denton (who appears all too briefly but provides an entertaining foil for the author while he does) gives a somewhat absurdist summary

”This was an evil place, slave masters with whips and chains. Now you’ve got whites in blackface here, tearing that plantation up. I’d call that unpoetic justice.”

Horwitz evidently spends so much time on mudfest because he finds its participants fascinating, a spell he’s unable to re-create for the reader.

The tolerance and understanding Horwitz is able to bring to his interviews finally breaks down on the aforementioned mule ride, where the mule rancher and guide who accompanies him proves himself an asshole too egregious even for the author’s capacious acceptance

… my failure in a department of which I’d felt I was chair: finding a way to reach and get along with just about anybody, no matter how different our backgrounds or beliefs or temperaments.

Afterward, Horwitz’ recent acquaintance, Texan Bret Cali, a self-described “industrious hippie”, diagnoses the trouble as resentiment:

”He needed to put your East Coast writer’s ass in its place, at the bottom of the pecking order.”

(It’s interesting that, in describing his failure in the above quote Horwitz turns to a metaphor from academia, his higher education being, no doubt, part of what the pseudonymous “Buck” resented).

So this examination of the political divide climaxes with an irreconcilable conflict of personalities, which does not seem to me far from the mark in examining the basic divisions of the country. If these are to be expressed ideologically, it’s hard to do better than quoting Charles Riotte, a German immigrant “forty-eighter” acquaintance of Olmsted, from whose 1856 letter Horwitz quotes

Riotte and his ilk viewed society “as a congregation of men; whose aim it is to elevate the wellbeing of the aggregate by the combined exertion.” Americans, by contrast, “look first upon themselves as private individuals, entitled to ask for all the rights and benefits of an organized community even to the detriment of the whole. … We idealize the community – you the individual! How is it possible, that we should ever amalgamate?”

Riotte closed by praising Olmsted’s writing on the South but expressed doubt that it would diminish the Slave Power. “I don’t know of any historical record of an Aristocracy giving up their privileges, except in the case of revolutionary pressure.”

But Horwitz is infected with the pundit’s disease of “both-siderism”. Rather than reflect that his experience with mule-skinner Buck is, in fact, the sort of interpersonal dynamic that more often than not is the end result of attempts at establishing dialogue across the political “fault line”, he excoriates his blue state peers who

… believe that every Trump voter was an irredeemable bigot. When I talked to my New England neighbors about deep-red Texas, it was clear they regarded it as arid, alien, and hostile, like ISIS-controlled parts of Syria. The self-righteous certitude of others on the left reminded me of a different Middle Eastern country: Saudi Arabia, where the religious police surveilled and punished citizens for even the faintest deviation from Wahhabi orthodoxy.

Unlike Horwitz, I have been to neither Martha’s Vineyard nor Saudi Arabia, so perhaps I should accept his comparison as the voice of experience. But really? It isn’t clear if someone actually made the ISIS comparison in good faith; if so, perhaps Horwitz intends his riposte to serve as an equal-but-opposite exaggeration. Given the political monoculture he describes encountering in Texas, though, it’s difficult to believe, even given the shunning of Alan Dershowitz, that he finds the Northeast on the whole more intolerant of political dissent than the South. ...more

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Oct 02, 2019 Ryan Fohl rated it really liked it · review of another edition

A travelogue that hits the parts of the South confederates in the attic missed. (Sorry Florida you are still left out) The author makes several insightful connections that are helpful in understanding our present. Books like this are better than documentaries, because people act different in front of a camera.

I wanted another book about southern politics, but he also slipped in a biography of someone I would have never read about but that I enjoyed very much. (Olmsted is mom’s hidden ...more

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Jul 15, 2019 Mark Miano rated it really liked it

I was on a business trip recently and brought this book along to start reading. Just moments before picking it up, I was looking at the New York Times on my device and made the surreal and upsetting discovery that Tony Horwitz had passed away a few hours earlier. What a terrible loss. Horwitz is best remembered as the author of CONFEDERATES IN THE ATTIC, but he's also the author of several other highly praised history books. I love the way he tells his narratives, by getting out on the road and ...more

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Jul 30, 2019 Glennon Harrison rated it really liked it · review of another edition

We have lost a great interpreter of the relationship between past and present. Sadly, Tony Horowitz died of a heart attack on Monday, May 27th, 2019 in Chevy Chase, MD. Your fans will miss your wit, insights, and your ability to interpret the stranger parts of America in a kind and humorous way.

Through his many books, Tony told fascinating stories that mixed humor with social criticism. Although this book was somewhat uneven in places (especially Louisiana), his trip down the Ohio was ...more

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Oct 13, 2019 Jill rated it really liked it · review of another edition

4.25 stars. Really loved the premise of this book - following the route Frederick Law Olmsted took just before the Civil War and comparing those times to today. I’ve always been fascinated by Olmsted and his landscape architecture in so many places I’ve visited, so I appreciated the biography but also enjoyed the author’s travel tales. I wish he’d spent more pages on Kentucky and Tennessee because naturally those were my favorite chapters, but he focused more on Texas and Louisiana. Reading the ...more

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About Tony Horwitz

Tony Horwitz

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Date of Birth: 1958

Tony Horwitz is a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and author whose books include Blue Latitudes, Confederates In The Attic and Baghdad Without A Map. His most recent work, published in May 2019, is Spying on the South, which follows Frederick Law Olmsted's travels from the Potomac to the Rio Grande as an undercover correspondent in the 1850s.
Tony has also been president of ...more

Books by Tony Horwitz

Confederates in the Attic: Dispatches from the Unfinished Civil War

Blue Latitudes: Boldly Going Where Captain Cook Has Gone Before

A Voyage Long and Strange: Rediscovering the New World

Midnight Rising: John Brown and the Raid That Sparked the Civil War

Baghdad Without a Map and Other Misadventures in Arabia

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“Olmsted’s initial faith in reasoned discourse had also waned. In the course of his travels, the South’s “leading men” had struck him as implacable: convinced of the superiority of their caste-bound society, intent on expanding it, and utterly contemptuous of the North. “They are a mischievous class—” — 0 likes

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