Take a photo of a barcode or cover
otterno11 's review for:
This was a very interesting companion on my recent trip to North and South Carolina, my first time exploring a part of the American South. I always enjoy reading a travel account while traveling myself, as it provides a backdrop to my own experiences. As I followed Tony Horwitz's journeys around the South in 1998 searching for the remains of the Civil War in contemporary Southern culture, I compared and contrasted his experiences with my own as I visited historical museums and sites such as Fort Sumter. Ten years later, I saw similarities but also differences from the events of the book.
As for the contents of the work, Horwitz, I felt wrote a very sympathetic account of the people he encountered on his journey and their viewpoints on the history of the Confederacy and the Civil War, no matter how strange they might be. Equal parts humorous (Hodge and the reenactors) and depressing (the racial issues that continue to haunt America), I felt that he captured the conflicting and contradictory attitudes towards the meanings of the war and its importance today. On the other hand, he reaches no real conclusions and the book may be seen as a collection of articles on various people and events in the Southern U.S. and its history. But, such is life sometimes, answers are not always obvious in such a complex and divisive topic as this, and I was given much to think on as I read and traveled.
As for the contents of the work, Horwitz, I felt wrote a very sympathetic account of the people he encountered on his journey and their viewpoints on the history of the Confederacy and the Civil War, no matter how strange they might be. Equal parts humorous (Hodge and the reenactors) and depressing (the racial issues that continue to haunt America), I felt that he captured the conflicting and contradictory attitudes towards the meanings of the war and its importance today. On the other hand, he reaches no real conclusions and the book may be seen as a collection of articles on various people and events in the Southern U.S. and its history. But, such is life sometimes, answers are not always obvious in such a complex and divisive topic as this, and I was given much to think on as I read and traveled.