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Confederates in the Attic: Dispatches from the Unfinished Civil War

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Confederates in the Attic: dispatches from the unfinished Civil War by Tony Horwitz

Book description
When prize-winning war correspondent Tony Horwitz leaves the battlefields of Bosnia and the Middle East for a peaceful corner of the Blue Ridge Mountains, he thinks he's put war zones behind him. But awakened one morning by the crackle of musket fire, Horwitz starts filing front-line dispatches again this time from a war close to home, and to his own heart.
Propelled by his boyhood passion for the Civil War, Horwitz embarks on a search for places and people still held in thrall by America's greatest conflict. The result is an adventure into the soul of the unvanquished South, where the ghosts of the Lost Cause are resurrected through ritual and remembrance.
In Virginia, Horwitz joins a band of 'hardcore' re-enactors who crash-diet to achieve the hollow-eyed look of starved Confederates; in Kentucky, he witnesses Klan rallies and calls for race war sparked by the killing of a white man who brandishes a rebel flag; at Andersonville, he finds that the prison's commander, executed as a war criminal, is now exalted as a martyr and hero; and in the book's climax, Horwitz takes a marathon trek from Antietam to Gettysburg to Appomattox in the company of Robert Lee Hodge, an eccentric pilgrim who dubs their odyssey the 'Civil Wargasm.'
Written with Horwitz's signature blend of humor, history, and hard-nosed journalism, Confederates in the Attic brings alive old battlefields and new ones 'classrooms, courts, country bars' where the past and the present collide, often in explosive ways. Poignant and picaresque, haunting and hilarious, it speaks to anyone who has ever felt drawn to the mythic South and to the dark romance of the Civil War.
Description from book jacket

Research the author and the book using library resources
Information on the author's life and works is available through our library's online resources. Recommended online resources for Confederates in the Attic: dispatches from the unfinished Civil War by Tony Horwitz include Academic Search Premier and Literature Resource Center. Enter your library barcode and then use the author's name or the book title to search for full-text encyclopedia or magazine articles.

Discussion questions
Confederates in the Attic discussion questions from readinggroupguide.com   

Readalikes
March: a Novel by Geraldine Brooks
Historical Fiction - During travels with her husband Tony Horwitz while he researched Confederates in the Attic, Ms. Brooks’ imagination was caught by a character. That character was Bronson Alcott who was the model for Mr. March, the father in Louisa May Alcott’s classic “Little Women. In her novel, March, Ms. Brooks makes Mr. March a Civil War chaplain, gives him Bronson Alcott’s real-life attributes and sends him off to war.
Blue Latitudes: Boldly Going Where Captain Cook Has Gone Before by Anthony Horwitz
Participatory journalism/travelogue - Horwitz blends an account of Cook’s voyages in the Pacific, which is interesting in itself, with Horwitz retracing Cook’s steps and assessing the impact of Western Europe’s first encounter with the native population and environment.
All-True Travels and Adventures of Lidie Newton by Jane Smiley
 Lidie can ride a horse--and not sidesaddle, either--walk forever, write, and argue. All of these abilities will stand her in good stead when she and her new husband, Thomas Newton, make their way to K.T. (Kansas Territory) with a case of Sharps rifles and a desire to keep Kansas from slavery. Alas, "In K.T., it was often the case that every version of every story was equally true and equally false."

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Lissa

Posted On:

  • Thursday, December 13, 2007

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