A review by samiam1972
Robert E. Lee and Me: A Southerner's Reckoning with the Myth of the Lost Cause by Ty Seidule

2.0

I came to this with high hopes but shelved it pretty let down after coming back to it after a long hiatus. What I thought would be an engaging, perhaps provocative, work was — in the end — a rather banal, tiresome, poorly written, yet extremely self-important personal account of coming to terms with one’s prior idolization of a Confederate icon. I couldn’t help feeling as if the author was trying to “southernersplain” or maybe “generalsplain”(to play on the term “mansplain”) something that we all already know … at least something that anyone, Southern or not, military or not, already knows if they’ve actually read this period of our history. Everything here is old news, but it’s presented as somehow groundbreaking. It isn’t. Moreover, it’s essentially so cobbled together from anecdotes and personal conclusions that I find it hard to categorize this as real historical scholarship. I sense that’s what the author wants this to be, but unfortunately, he’s ultimately unsuccessful.