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Amazon.com Review
Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Tony Horwitz returned from years of traipsing through war zones as a foreign correspondent only to find that his childhood obsession with the Civil War had caught up with him. Near his house in Virginia, he happened to encounter people who reenact the Civil War--men who dress up in period costumes and live as Johnny Rebs and Billy Yanks. Intrigued, he wound up having some odd adventures with the "hardcores," the fellows who try to immerse themselves in the war, hoping to get what they lovingly term a "period rush." Horwitz spent two years reporting on why Americans are still so obsessed with the war, and the ways in which it resonates today. In the course of his work, he made a sobering side trip to cover a murder that was provoked by the display of the Confederate flag, and he spoke to a number of people seeking to honor their ancestors who fought for the Confederacy. Horwitz has a flair for odd details that spark insights, and Confederates in the Attic is a thoughtful and entertaining book that does much to explain America's continuing obsession with the Civil War.

From Publishers Weekly
Horowitz, a Pulitzer Prize-winning foreign war correspondent, returned to his native U.S. turf to tackle the subject of our own Civil War and how its history is actively replayed by scores of grown men. He spent time among the hard-core buffs, the groups who put on period clothes and "re-enact" battles. As part of a self-imposed year-long "scheme" to examine the war's contemporary meaning, he does such things as visit a birthday party for Gen. Stonewall Jackson given by the Sons of the Confederacy. He also mulls over his own theories about the lasting legacy of the war, arguing that it was as much a cultural battle between the mores of North and South as a military one. Horowitz's rambling first-person narrative takes constant sidetracks and is made human with its self-effacing descriptions of his own foibles. This is why it works effectively as audio: it comes across more as a personal adventure than a polemical historical analysis. Though the author tells of being a Civil War buff since childhood, he nonetheless retains the freshness of an outsider's perspective (acting as a sort of foreign correspondent at home). Seasoned audio narrator Beck tries to convey this sense of freshness and boyish enthusiasm in his
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From School Library Journal
YA-Fascination with the Civil War runs in Horwitz's family. His Russian immigrant great-grandfather continued to pore over books on the subject at age 101 and his father read to the author each night from a 10-volume photographic history. Years later, the author and his wife awoke one morning to the sounds of a mock Civil War battle being filmed in front of their Virginia home. Subsequent conversations with the participants rekindled this enthusiasm and launched Horwitz on a year-long quest to determine why the Civil War continues to enthrall so many Americans. He journeyed throughout the Old South, visiting battlefields and museums. He joined "super hardcores" such as Robert Lee Hodge, learning about "farbs," "spooning," and "period rushes." He conversed with the only living Confederate widow and witnessed both the "Catechism" taught to Children of Confederate Veterans and the attitudes of black teens in Selma, AL. While his encounters ran the gamut from amusing to infuriating to positively frightening, this Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter relates them all with clarity and honesty. Read Confederates simply for the engrossing, well-written account of contemporary American culture that it is or choose any chapter to spark or enliven class discussion. Don't miss this one.
Dori DeSpain, Herndon Fortnightly Library, Fairfax County, VA
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Customer Reviews

Read it several times, gave away many copies. It's that good.
Read this book if you care about the South or race in America. Or if you like a good travel story or astoundingly great character sketches. Dozens of wonderful stories skillfully woven around his theme of the undying War Between the States and its lingering affects on whites and blacks in the South and in the USA. The author lets his points develop from the stories. He does not have a soapbox. The re-enactors and various keepers of the flame are so colorful that no one could invent them, not even Charles Dickens. The author does not skewer his subjects. He finds the humanity in all of them.

I first read it in the 90s when it came out. Just re-read it for maybe the fourth time after several years. Some of the events and politicians are a little passe, but it's still a more-than-5-star book.

I am not from the South and don't have family that cares about the War. That said, I expect that you could love this book as a black or white Southerner. The people are real, not caricatures. The book is tons of fun, and you will certainly laugh out loud, but it's not a make-fun-of-rednecks book.

A Really Good Read for Understanding and Reflection
This is a book I would never have read, except for the fact that I have a remarkable step son who likes to challenge my reading habits and try to make me a better person. With this book as a Christmas gift this year, I hope he has done both.

A son of the North, born in Maine and lived there most of my life, I always kind of looked at the Civil War as "we won", "they lost," Yea for our side.

As this book points out, if the battles had been fought largely in my nieghborhood, say Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont and Massachusetts, I might have has a different and more intense view of things.

Horowitz, points out in a very pleasant way, what this war meant and still means to those on the losing side and sometimes...why it does.

The book is divided bewtween his experiences with some very "hardcore" reinactor types, and his own travels through the "South" where he experiences the reactions of others to their view of (1) the War Between the States or (2) the American Civil War. Which description you use depends on where you live.

My step son who gave me this book, attended and graduated from Gettysburg College. His mother and I have many fond memories of getting acquainted with the Civil War battle ground there during the four years of his matriculation. The 20th Maine had a large role in that encounter, commanded by Joshua Chamberlin. Little Round Top is something I knew a bit about before traveling there. Having been there and read on that aspect of the battle, I know much more now.

However, I digress. This book is an interesting travel through the South of the Civil War with interesting encounters and discussions with those in the South who will not let his matter go and who give insight and understanding as to why.

You will encounter Robert Lee Hodge when you read this book. He is as hard core a reinactor as exists. He probably should be bronzed by those who believe as he does in the essence of the war and the need to preserve it as living history forever.

The American Civil War was a horrendous event in the numbers of people killed and wounded, the devestation brought to the South and it's long lasting effect on the American psyche, even when we don't realize it.

This book goes some distance in addressing that. It gets past the parades, the flag waving (both sides) and deals with a myriad of under currents which still affect this country. It is is powerfully and well written and worthy of being read by anyone who wants to gain a better understanding of who we are as a people and a country.

A Yankee writer's take on the Civil War's legacy in the South
As other reviewers have stated, the author Horwitz, in Confederates in the Attic, does engage in some "rebel bashing." But I believe he does so only half heartedly, probably in order to appease his peers who would take him to task if he did not sufficiently bow to political correctness in his observations. It's not hard to read between the lines with his admiration of the accessible Shelby Foote and the experience with hardcore reenactors and Civil Wargasm that he so enthusiastically relates. Some of the people and attitudes documented by Horwitz are indeed grim and dark. Nevertheless, they all play a part in the great sociological tapestry of the South.

I found especially interesting and amusing the chapter on Atlanta and Gone with the Wind. Horwitz documents the unsoutherness of modern Atlanta and offers this quote from John Shelton Reed on page 283: "Every time I look at Atlanta, I see what a quarter million Confederate soldiers died to prevent." Interesting as well is the fondness of the Japanese for Gone With the Wind. On page 299 Horwitz notes the resonance between Japan and the South, both societies having been destroyed and then reconstructed by the United States.