Spying on the South: An Odyssey Across the American Divide

I love Tony Horwitz’s nonfiction. He has a simple formula: he picks some interesting, underappreciated bit of history, then explores the modern day geography. The result is a mix of travelogue and history as Horwitz interweaves his own adventures with the history. His best known work is Confederates in the Attic, and I was beyond overjoyed when I saw that he was returning to the South.Spying on the South retraces the steps of Frederick Olmstead on a pre-Civil War trip through the South. (It wasn’t my focus or his, but Horwitz’s portrait of a young Olmstead, well before his days as a famed landscape artists, is delightful.) Horwitz alternates historical tidbits with his own misadventures. I said travelogue, but that undersells it. How many travelogues include one leg by coal barge and another by mule? The real joy of these sections are the people Horwitz meets along the way. He treats them with dignity and humanity, and their disparate stories will do far more to flesh out hillbillies and white working class Americans for the person who entry to the field was Hillbilly Elegy than a work like, say, Appalachian Reckoning.I should make clear, though, that this is not a work that primarily focuses on hillbillies. Horwitz starts in West Virginia, but he also spends time in Kentucky, Tennessee, along the Mississippi, in Louisiana, Texas, and on the Texas-Mexico border. I was disappointed to learn that Horwitz only covers the “there” (not the “back again”) of Olmstead’s second trip. He leaves out, then, stops in Chattanooga, Asheville, and Abingdon that would have been of particular interest to me. And I loved the book, but the West Virginia chapter makes me really wish Horwitz had written a book on Appalachia and the Rust Belt instead.Olmstead made his journeys through the South a mere decade before the Civil War. It wasn’t a pleasure trip: he sent regular dispatches back to New York for newspaper publication, and he collected and edited those dispatches into a three-volume book (since Horwitz skips the return journey with its long leg through Appalachia, I’m going to pick up the third volume, A Journey in the Back Country). Olmstead intended to foster dialogue in a country sharply divided; instead he came to see the South as intransigent and became radicalized (he would later moderate and arguably betray his principles by designed segregated spaces in the South).As the subtitle suggests, Horwitz also takes an odyssey across the American divide. His experience writing Confederates in the Attic notwithstanding, Horwitz is open about how little he knows about the territory he covers, especially Texas. The people he meets are very much foreign to him—culturally, politically, and economically.Spying on the South seems well-timed, and it is, but it isn’t directly a response to Trump. Horwitz sets off on his journey in West Virginia before the 2016 primaries even started. As the narrative and timeline progress, Trump begins to intrude, but Horwitz does an admirable job not using him as a crutch.This is Horwitz’s most political and most pessimistic book, but it still has everything that makes his other books so special. The coal barge highlights “a good living for country boys” where they “can still work from the neck down.” A sojourn at a weekend devoted to mudding and Horwitz’s misadventures on a mule are enormously entertaining. Horwitz humanizes the people of the Red States he crosses throughout. Among other things, Horwitz’s narrative highlights the cultural diversity of the Red States. West Virginia is very different than Cajun Louisiana is very different than rural east Texas is very different from the Texas-Mexico border. The focus is rural, with cities like Nashville and Houston getting short shrift. The economic contrast between the rural Appalachia and South and the cities of Texas is stark.Horwitz works hard to see the best in people, but the South has an ugly history with race, in a place where “the past is never dead. It’s not even past.” Horwitz goes on plantation tours that somehow manage to avoid any mention of slavery in Mississippi and is subjected to racial slurs by Texans who insist there is a camp of Muslim insurgents in their rural county (Horwitz, who worked extensively in the Middle East as a journalist, offers to go check it out). His story of a slaveholder who attempted to join in political reform after the Civil War ends in the slaughter of dozens of African-Americans.Spying on the South may not be Horwitz’s most enjoyable book, but it is his most relevant to what I am doing here. It is the sort of book that the working class-curious neophyte ought to read, and early. Even if you aren’t so culturally conscious, you are sure to learn something from the history side.

I purchased this book because I am a fan of the writer. While it was good and has some passages that I believe are relevant today it was not of the caliber of "Confederates In The Attic". I did not know about Frederick Olmstead. This book propeled me to read more about Mr. Olmstead and his writings. All in all I'm not sure If buy this book again. Still a fan though Mr. Horowitz.

Tony Horwitz recently passed away. There are few non-fiction books that I've enjoyed more than CONFEDERATES IN THE ATTIC, especially the sections on the re-enactors. Horwitz takes another pass at the South with his last book SPYING ON THE SOUTH.One of his heroes was Frederick Olmsted, who designed Central Park in New York City and influenced multiple city parks into the modern age as his sons continued his work. Olmsted idea was more social intercourse between the various classes and diverse races. During the last few pages Horwitz visits Central Park to see how successful Olmsted was.But that's not what the book is about. Prior to his work designing city parks, Olmsted was a drifter. He never went to college, although he was there soaking up books as his brother was in pre-med at Harward. Anyway he got a job working for the New York Times and another New York paper interacting with Southerners and sending back occasional dispatches. Horwitz tries to follow Olmsted's route. He actually went there twice between 1854-1856.The first anecdote is about Horwitz's experience on a tow boat, pushing coal barges down the Cumberland and Ohio Rivers. A tow boat can push as many as nine or more barges. This is dangerous, life-threatening work, but the workers Horwitz talked to were willing to risk black lung or whatever for a well-paying job. It's always about the job.From there Horwitz takes a steam boat down the Mississippi, one of the most restful parts of his whole experience. They stop at Baton Rouge and learn a little about demagogue Huey Long, who might have run for president and possibly won if he hadn't been assassinated. The rest of Horwitz's tour through Louisiana is about the food, Cajuns and something called the Mud Fest. This is a huge mud puddle on land that used to be part of a plantation where grown men risk expensive machinery to play in the mud more-or-less. They charge into the mud puddle in trucks with oversized tires and most often get stuck or blow an engine. Horwitz's partner was from Australia and even he thought this was insane. He also complained constantly about the high-cholesterol food once they left New Orleans. Ironically, when he left Horwitz's tour, this foodie, had to have quintuple bypass surgery.Once they get into Texas Horwitz hits all the high spots, like the Alamo. Surprisingly Horwitz seems to view Santa Ana as being in the right. Davy Crocket, Jim Bowie, Colonel Travis and the boys are viewed as land grabbers. Slavery was banned in Mexico but immigrants brought slavery with them and refused to give it up. This whole fracas was more of a manifest destiny thing than settlers being abused by the big bad dictator.One of the most interesting interludes Olmsted had was in West Texas where he met free-thinking German immigrants who didn't like slavery or church. Many of them were veterans of the 1848 revolutions when upstarts grappled with the monarchies and lost. When the Civil War started the younger generation tried to flee to Mexico and try to eventually join up with union troops, but one of their fellow Germans ratted them out, and they were murdered in little known Nueces River massacre.Horwitz's last book is not as entertaining as CONFEDERATES IN THE ATTIC, but I was struck by the similarities between pre Civil War America and 2019.

This is an easy to read, hard to put down romp through the South. With Yeoman as his guide, the author makes use of accidental characters to stitch a picture of the South, both past and present, that few readers will ever have the time or inclination uncover for themselves. His description of his interactions with mules is better than anything written by BIll Byerson. His send up of the political antics of the rhinestone mountain men who make up Trump's "base" is priceless.

È vero che esiste un legame tra Olmsted viaggiatore e Olmsted architetto, tuttavia le due parti del libro restano disomogenee. Malgrado ciò il libro è di grande interesse e cattura subito l'attenzione del lettore e la mantiene.