Take a photo of a barcode or cover
242 reviews for:
Robert E. Lee and Me: A Southerner's Reckoning with the Myth of the Lost Cause
Ty Seidule
4.4 AVERAGE
242 reviews for:
Robert E. Lee and Me: A Southerner's Reckoning with the Myth of the Lost Cause
Ty Seidule
4.4 AVERAGE
Every white American should read this book and consider deeply the lessons they learned in school…perhaps, those lessons were more myth than fact.
This educational and factually supported story is a must read.
This is an amazing story of one white man's journey from promoting a white supremacist narrative of the Civil War and his childhood hero Robert E. Lee to an antiracist view of both. Granted, like most of us old white guys, the author should have known better much earlier in his life, especially as he was and is a historian, but this is a testament to the effectiveness and salience of the white supremacist idea in the United States; when one is raised believing the truth of the racial story promulgated by white people, an entire restructuring of one's thought process and belief systems is required in order to reconfigure that perception. We are privileged to see Ty Seidule's process as he goes through this transformation. There is inherently a degree of self-congratulations in such a memoir and he does not escape this trap. It is tempting to say, "welcome to the human race," to point out that he has only reached the bare minimum of antiracist understanding, as is true of most of us who are white and have been skating by on our privilege for the decades of our lives and the centuries of our predecessors. Still, we all must begin somewhere and I applaud his forthrightness and willingness to publicly engage in some deep and painful self-examination.
Unfortunately, this book falls into a category I have seen far too much of in the past ten years or so: it would have been a far better book with some judicious guidance by an editor. Seidule really has only one theme here: he grew up loving and respecting the legacy of Robert E. Lee, came to discover that Lee was a racist and traitor who should never have been revered, nonetheless honored with university names, street names, statues, and plaudits. He violated his oath as an officer of the U.S. Army, was responsible for the death of thousands of those he had sworn to protect, and engaged in this fight for the express purpose of supporting and expanding a nation based on the enslavement, rape, torture, and death of an entire group of people. There really is only so many ways one can restate, "mea culpa, I believed a lie and propped up a white supremacist traitor. Now I'm angry." Because he is a historian, one must believe that he could have expanded the story of Lee or his own, or perhaps fleshed it out with more of a narrative of the war. I understand the impulse to create something which is book-length, but to do so with repetition of the same points again and again is not a reasonable strategy (and makes for a rather unsatisfying read). I honestly don't hold the author much to account for this fundamental compositional error; that's what editors are for. I also note his rather frequent use of sentence fragments and attribute this to the same cause. This could have been solved by any competent copy editor; that's what semicolons were made for. One more specific complaint: once he has determined that the word "plantation" is a racist dodge and decides to call them slave labor camps, there is no need to repeat this renaming each time he uses the word. Eventually he stops with the parentheticals, but it takes far too long for this authorial choice to be made.
Still and all, this is an important addition to antiracist literature as written by white people who have finally come to their senses. It is no substitute for the harder-hitting indictments of white supremacy such as Caste by Isabel Wilkerson, How To Be an Antiracist from Ibram X. Kendi, or Layla Saad's Me and White Supremacy, but as an adjunct to them is a valuable contribution.
Unfortunately, this book falls into a category I have seen far too much of in the past ten years or so: it would have been a far better book with some judicious guidance by an editor. Seidule really has only one theme here: he grew up loving and respecting the legacy of Robert E. Lee, came to discover that Lee was a racist and traitor who should never have been revered, nonetheless honored with university names, street names, statues, and plaudits. He violated his oath as an officer of the U.S. Army, was responsible for the death of thousands of those he had sworn to protect, and engaged in this fight for the express purpose of supporting and expanding a nation based on the enslavement, rape, torture, and death of an entire group of people. There really is only so many ways one can restate, "mea culpa, I believed a lie and propped up a white supremacist traitor. Now I'm angry." Because he is a historian, one must believe that he could have expanded the story of Lee or his own, or perhaps fleshed it out with more of a narrative of the war. I understand the impulse to create something which is book-length, but to do so with repetition of the same points again and again is not a reasonable strategy (and makes for a rather unsatisfying read). I honestly don't hold the author much to account for this fundamental compositional error; that's what editors are for. I also note his rather frequent use of sentence fragments and attribute this to the same cause. This could have been solved by any competent copy editor; that's what semicolons were made for. One more specific complaint: once he has determined that the word "plantation" is a racist dodge and decides to call them slave labor camps, there is no need to repeat this renaming each time he uses the word. Eventually he stops with the parentheticals, but it takes far too long for this authorial choice to be made.
Still and all, this is an important addition to antiracist literature as written by white people who have finally come to their senses. It is no substitute for the harder-hitting indictments of white supremacy such as Caste by Isabel Wilkerson, How To Be an Antiracist from Ibram X. Kendi, or Layla Saad's Me and White Supremacy, but as an adjunct to them is a valuable contribution.
There were several good chapters in this book but a few seemed too long, repetitive and poorly edited. He admits to being righteous in what seems to be his recent awakening to his own racism. It may this righteousness that causes him to be repetitive. What I found very interesting is that his girlfriend, who later became his wife, told him of his racist views before they married yet it took him decades to realize it for himself. Didn't give her much credit at the time apparently. He does a great job of taking Robert E Lee down however and I appreciated his writing about the military and federal governments role in casting Lee as some sort of hero.
challenging
informative
reflective
slow-paced
This book is a wildly earnest look at the Lost Cause myth by a deeply southern, pretty obviously conservative former army officer/historian (I haven't forgotten! It only gets mentioned every other page) whose idea of a good host for a viral video is PragerU.
I found this book to be endearing but limited in it's application of an anti-racist lens. I can hear and vibe with the extreme anger and shame at being sold a pack of absolutely shameless and profit driven lies, then shake my head in frustration when the Mexican-American War is mentioned positively in passing. Not only that, but the genocidal campaigns against native peoples before and during and after the Civil War barely get a mention at all. I don't understand how you can see the undergirding of white supremacy in the context of the Civil War, only to fail to see it in the wars of conquest that America committed against it's poorer and browner neighbors and around the world.
That said-- this is the probably the bridge we need to reach people further in. I also deeply appreciate the vulnerability on display, and also the acknowledgement that the discomfort and pain and growing up on harmful lies is nothing next to the experience of being enslaved and oppressed. A good, honest book that should be bookended by more and wider perspectives.
I found this book to be endearing but limited in it's application of an anti-racist lens. I can hear and vibe with the extreme anger and shame at being sold a pack of absolutely shameless and profit driven lies, then shake my head in frustration when the Mexican-American War is mentioned positively in passing. Not only that, but the genocidal campaigns against native peoples before and during and after the Civil War barely get a mention at all. I don't understand how you can see the undergirding of white supremacy in the context of the Civil War, only to fail to see it in the wars of conquest that America committed against it's poorer and browner neighbors and around the world.
That said-- this is the probably the bridge we need to reach people further in. I also deeply appreciate the vulnerability on display, and also the acknowledgement that the discomfort and pain and growing up on harmful lies is nothing next to the experience of being enslaved and oppressed. A good, honest book that should be bookended by more and wider perspectives.
This is a great book and one that definitely needs to be read by anyone that doesn’t really understand the problem with Robert E. Lee and the confederate monuments still standing in the US today. It’s like if Germany stood up a bunch of monuments to Hitler after WWII - that would be ridiculous and so too is the South’s love of their confederate past. It’s disgustingly similar to the issues we see in recent times with the insurrection on Jan 6th. So many parallels. The reason I’m giving 3 stars instead of 4 is that I found it repetitive, a better editor was needed here but overall a recommended book.
I realized I accidentally posted an update (unable to edit) instead of starting a review, so I've restarted here.
Enjoying so far, will try to update with some notes a la Riq Hölle
- Seidule argues that Gone With the Wind (both the books and movie) may have had a greater impact on current US public perceptions of the Civil War than the war itself.
- I enjoyed the section on US Army forts named for Confederate generals and the investigation into why treasonous officers with poor to barely mediocre military talents received recognition.
- Great story of how African-American cadets at West Point forced Nixon to give up his desire for a Confederate memorial on campus.
- Related to the above point of recognition for Confederates, Seidule shows that the erection of statues and monuments to Confederates (many of them a century after the Civil War ended) was almost always a reaction to civil rights movements, not the reconciliation of the divided nation as is often claimed.
- Seidule’s final assessment of Lee is an overdue and justified reckoning. Lee was not pressured into joining by family or peers, most of whom stayed loyal to the United States. He betrayed his oath and his nation in order to defend the reprehensible institution of slavery. And his reputation as a postbellum advocate for reunification should be forever marred by his continued arguments against rights for Black citizens.
Overall, this is a fantastic book. Seidule’s decision, on advice of counsel - his wife, to blend personal memoir with historical account is precisely what makes his argument so compelling. His stories provoke discomfort and unease, but his aim is to educate, not condemn, his readers, some of whom may share his background. There is much more to his tale than what I can include in this review so I wholeheartedly recommend you read it yourself to see just how valuable his reflections are as America comes to term with its racist past.
Enjoying so far, will try to update with some notes a la Riq Hölle
- Seidule argues that Gone With the Wind (both the books and movie) may have had a greater impact on current US public perceptions of the Civil War than the war itself.
- I enjoyed the section on US Army forts named for Confederate generals and the investigation into why treasonous officers with poor to barely mediocre military talents received recognition.
- Great story of how African-American cadets at West Point forced Nixon to give up his desire for a Confederate memorial on campus.
- Related to the above point of recognition for Confederates, Seidule shows that the erection of statues and monuments to Confederates (many of them a century after the Civil War ended) was almost always a reaction to civil rights movements, not the reconciliation of the divided nation as is often claimed.
- Seidule’s final assessment of Lee is an overdue and justified reckoning. Lee was not pressured into joining by family or peers, most of whom stayed loyal to the United States. He betrayed his oath and his nation in order to defend the reprehensible institution of slavery. And his reputation as a postbellum advocate for reunification should be forever marred by his continued arguments against rights for Black citizens.
Overall, this is a fantastic book. Seidule’s decision, on advice of counsel - his wife, to blend personal memoir with historical account is precisely what makes his argument so compelling. His stories provoke discomfort and unease, but his aim is to educate, not condemn, his readers, some of whom may share his background. There is much more to his tale than what I can include in this review so I wholeheartedly recommend you read it yourself to see just how valuable his reflections are as America comes to term with its racist past.
informative
reflective
medium-paced