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239 reviews for:
Robert E. Lee and Me: A Southerner's Reckoning with the Myth of the Lost Cause
Ty Seidule
4.4 AVERAGE
239 reviews for:
Robert E. Lee and Me: A Southerner's Reckoning with the Myth of the Lost Cause
Ty Seidule
4.4 AVERAGE
This is a page-turner that will teach you new things about the Civil War, the 20th century, and today by using real, primary evidence. Questions I had while reading: who writes our history? When does it get recorded? And most importantly, is the recounting of history serving a purpose other than truthfully recalling the past?
informative
reflective
medium-paced
General Ty Seidule, a Southerner and former professor of history at Westpoint, absolutely oblierates Confederate apologism and makes a compelling case to end our misguided and racist veneration of the Lost Cause mythology. I wish more folks could hear him talk and read this book.
Outstanding! Matter of fact statements that allow this Northerner to better understand the Lost Cause Myth. It’s engaging, informative, and important. I’ve been teaching history for over 15 years, and I learned so much content and have a much better understanding of the divisions between the Mason-Dixon. I am not going to shut up about this book anytime in the near future. Truly, a must-read!
challenging
informative
reflective
medium-paced
“Racism is the virus in the American dirt, infecting everything and everyone. To combat racism, we must do more than acknowledge the long history of white supremacy. Policies must change. Yet, an understanding of history remains the foundation. The only way to prevent a racist future is to first understand our racist past.”-Ty Seidule
Robert E. Lee and Me is not only fantastic, but also one of the best researched books I’ve ever read. Instead of just arguing with friends and family who still defend racist symbols and historical figures, I will be pointing them in the direction of this book, and recommending it to everyone else as well.
Robert E. Lee and Me is not only fantastic, but also one of the best researched books I’ve ever read. Instead of just arguing with friends and family who still defend racist symbols and historical figures, I will be pointing them in the direction of this book, and recommending it to everyone else as well.
informative
reflective
medium-paced
challenging
informative
inspiring
reflective
fast-paced
informative
reflective
slow-paced
I think the last chapter of this book should be required reading. It succinctly lays out Lee's history giving damning evidence of why Lee fought against the USA
Tells important historical truth. Confesses white privilege.
I grew up in Richmond, Va., and this book was completely familiar to me.
And it gives me hope. Because if Ty Seidule lived with this all his life and can finally see it for what it is, there is hope that others eventually will, too. Bravo on your journey.
And it gives me hope. Because if Ty Seidule lived with this all his life and can finally see it for what it is, there is hope that others eventually will, too. Bravo on your journey.
Seidule, Ty. Robert E. Lee and Me: A Southerner’s Reckoning with the Myth of the Lost Cause. St. Martin’s Press, 2021.
Ty Seidule has written an impassioned memoir and history that shows us how to confront the historical myths many of us have grown up with and see around us every day. He grew up idolizing Robert E. Lee, attending Washington and Lee University and becoming a career Army officer and teacher of military history at West Point. Even as a young officer, he says, he aspired to be the kind of Virginia gentleman that he believed Lee to epitomize. His study of history, however, taught him that the Civil War was not the noble Lost Cause of Gone with the Wind and that Lee never regarded African Americans as fully human. The Civil War was a war to keep human beings enslaved and not a defense of states’ rights and an idyllic way of life. Plantations, he says, would be better termed “enslaved labor farms.” Lee, he argues, violated his oath and committed treason when he joined the Confederate army. He was an effective college president after the war, but the never changed his racist views and does not deserve statues in his honor. Seidule details the process by which Lee and his lost cause became mythologized, even by the United States Army against which he fought. He also explains the often hidden racist history of the Southern towns in which he grew up. Along the way, he makes a powerful case for removing many of the Jim Crow and Civil Rights era monuments to the Confederacy and for renaming the Army bases named after Confederate soldiers like Benning and Bragg. He is a bit repetitive now and then but that is a minor flaw. A strong four stars.
Ty Seidule has written an impassioned memoir and history that shows us how to confront the historical myths many of us have grown up with and see around us every day. He grew up idolizing Robert E. Lee, attending Washington and Lee University and becoming a career Army officer and teacher of military history at West Point. Even as a young officer, he says, he aspired to be the kind of Virginia gentleman that he believed Lee to epitomize. His study of history, however, taught him that the Civil War was not the noble Lost Cause of Gone with the Wind and that Lee never regarded African Americans as fully human. The Civil War was a war to keep human beings enslaved and not a defense of states’ rights and an idyllic way of life. Plantations, he says, would be better termed “enslaved labor farms.” Lee, he argues, violated his oath and committed treason when he joined the Confederate army. He was an effective college president after the war, but the never changed his racist views and does not deserve statues in his honor. Seidule details the process by which Lee and his lost cause became mythologized, even by the United States Army against which he fought. He also explains the often hidden racist history of the Southern towns in which he grew up. Along the way, he makes a powerful case for removing many of the Jim Crow and Civil Rights era monuments to the Confederacy and for renaming the Army bases named after Confederate soldiers like Benning and Bragg. He is a bit repetitive now and then but that is a minor flaw. A strong four stars.