Confederates in the Attic: Dispatches from the Unfinished Civil War by Tony HorwitzMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
A year after the infamous rally in Charlottesville, dozens of Confederate monuments have been removed from different states. NPR went to Memphis, Tenn., to find out what happens after their removal. Lee Millar told NPR host Audie Cornish,
Maybe ask your listeners, what would it feel like if your fifth great-grandfather's grave was destroyed? Yes, it's personal.
Before reading this fascinating investigation of the echoes The Civil War in the CSA's former lands, I would have dismissed that remark as bordering on ridiculous. The author finds much evidence of such sentiment, and strongly rooted. He traveled with hard-core reenactors to sacred sites, including spooning with some unwashed participants. Horwitz finds the antipathy for the north, sublimated racism, and deification of CSA heores still well entrenched across the region.
The only thing keeping me from giving this compelling study five stars is the unfortunate lack of a single picture when there is so much importance in the appearance of the most committed reenactors as well as the many sites and towns visited across the south in a breathless, tour called the Civil Wargasm.
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