A review by lakecake
Confederates in the Attic: Dispatches from the Unfinished Civil War by Tony Horwitz

3.0

The timing of this book—originally published in 1998–makes this now seem like a really quaint nostalgia tour versus the intimate, illuminating work it probably was when it was published. Though you can see the threads of our current national attitudes and difficulties here, and it’s fascinating to look back on this book through that lens, the original idea of this being some sort of hilarious travelogue documenting scattered weirdos who can’t let go of a loss 130 years in the past doesn’t hold up. Still an easy read and a good primer for folks who maybe don’t know much about their Civil War history or the reason we’re in this mess currently, but adjusting the lens seems key to enjoying this today.