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Spying on the South: An Odyssey Across the American Divide Hardcover – May 14, 2019
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With Spying on the South, the best-selling author of Confederates in the Attic returns to the South and the Civil War era for an epic adventure on the trail of America's greatest landscape architect. In the 1850s, the young Frederick Law Olmsted was adrift, a restless farmer and dreamer in search of a mission. He found it during an extraordinary journey, as an undercover correspondent in the South for the up-and-coming New York Times.
For the Connecticut Yankee, pen name "Yeoman," the South was alien, often hostile territory. Yet Olmsted traveled for 14 months, by horseback, steamboat, and stagecoach, seeking dialogue and common ground. His vivid dispatches about the lives and beliefs of Southerners were revelatory for readers of his day, and Yeoman's remarkable trek also reshaped the American landscape, as Olmsted sought to reform his own society by creating democratic spaces for the uplift of all. The result: Central Park and Olmsted's career as America's first and foremost landscape architect.
Tony Horwitz rediscovers Yeoman Olmsted amidst the discord and polarization of our own time. Is America still one country? In search of answers, and his own adventures, Horwitz follows Olmsted's tracks and often his mode of transport (including muleback): through Appalachia, down the Mississippi River, into bayou Louisiana, and across Texas to the contested Mexican borderland. Venturing far off beaten paths, Horwitz uncovers bracing vestiges and strange new mutations of the Cotton Kingdom. Horwitz's intrepid and often hilarious journey through an outsized American landscape is a masterpiece in the tradition of Great Plains, Bad Land, and the author's own classic, Confederates in the Attic.
- Print length496 pages
- LanguageEnglish
- PublisherPenguin Press
- Publication dateMay 14, 2019
- Dimensions9.53 x 1.61 x 6.54 inches
- ISBN-101101980281
- ISBN-13978-1101980286
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Editorial Reviews
Review
One of NPR's Best Books of 2019
“Timely . . . A valuable work that combines biography, history and travelogue. . . . Horwitz is a smooth writer and an even better reporter (hardly surprising, given that he won a Pulitzer Prize for reporting at The Wall Street Journal), and he recounts his travels with insight interspersed with humor, as well as with an intermittent raising of the eyebrows at numerous oddities and occasional evils.” —The New York Times Book Review
“In Horwitz’s writing, past and present collide and march together on almost every page, prying our minds open with the absurdity, hilarity and humanity we encounter. Olmsted spent nine months traveling 4,000 miles and then wrote hundreds of pages about it; Horwitz spent two years revisiting his paths, his ideas and his psyche, capturing the story in 414 pages of sparkling prose.” —David Blight, The Washington Post
“A compelling report on the state of our present disunion.” —Wall Street Journal
“I've been waiting for Tony Horwitz to write another big on-the-road book that crisscrosses the American cultural divide . . . Spying on the South is every bit as enlightening and alive with detail, absurdity and colorful characters as Confederates in the Attic was.” —NPR
"He was the rare historian—the only historian I can think of—equally at home in the archive and in an interview, a dedicated scholar, a devoted journalist." —Jill Lepore, The New Yorker
“Horwitz’s excellence as a writer and reporter unearths forgotten chapters of history while making fascinating present-day discoveries.” —The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
“Horwitz is an amiable narrator who marries a journalist’s knack for scene-setting and chatting folks up with the ability to tell a good historical tale.” —BookPage
“A tour is only as good as its guide, and Horwitz is a seasoned one—inquisitive, open-minded, and opting for observation over judgment, whether at a dive bar, monster truck rally, the Creation Museum, or a historical plantation. The book will appeal to fans of travelogue, Civil War–era history, and current events by way of Southern sensibilities.” —Booklist
“Horwitz brings humor, curiosity, and care to capturing the voices of the larger-than-life characters he encounters. A huge canvas of intricate details, this thoughtful and observant work delicately navigates the long shadow of America’s history.” —Publishers Weekly, starred review
“With the keen eye and deft pen that he's long brought to telling the odd and wonderful and fascinating story of America, Tony Horwitz has returned to familiar territory—the South—to give us a unique piece of reportage from a region that tells us a whole lot more about the country than the country sometimes wants to admit. Like his classic Confederates in the Attic, this book will be read, remembered, and treasured.” —Jon Meacham, Pulitzer-Prize-winning historian and author of The Soul of America
“Tony Horwitz’s reporting is fearless and persistent and inspired—and it produces views of America like no one else’s. Spying on the South kept me turning the pages to see what frightening and funny revelation was coming next. An important book for our almost unprecedented moment in history.” —Ian Frazier, author of Great Plains and Travels in Siberia
“In the long dark years before the Civil War, Frederick Law Olmsted toured the South by stage, by boat, by train, and by foot, reporting on a nation unraveling. Tony Horwitz does much more than follow in Olmsted’s footsteps in this searching travel narrative: he chronicles an American agony, the pain of division, the anguish of uncertainty. But he finds, too, an enduring American spirit of generosity, and commonweal, and curiosity.” —Jill Lepore, author of These Truths: A History of the United States
“Two journeys, a hundred and sixty years apart, remind us that history doesn’t repeat itself, but it does rhyme. In the midst of our country’s long-overdue reckoning with symbols of white supremacy, Tony Horwitz retraces the steps of America’s greatest landscape architect, Frederick Law Olmsted, whose encounters with slavery forced him to rethink the role of civic spaces in the American experiment. Horwitz brings home a magnificent account of who we have been and what we might still become.” —Henry Louis Gates, Jr., author of Stony the Road
“Having grown up amidst the Emerald Necklace, having lived off the northern fringes of Central Park and later the western edge of its rangier cousin, Prospect, and having read Devil In the White City, I truly did not know there were any more astonishments left in the life of Frederick Law Olmsted. Leave it to the incomparable Tony Horwitz to reveal Olmsted’s secret life as a journalistic super-spy, peering not merely into the burgeoning Confederacy, but, as Horowitz poignantly observes, a cultural divide with which we are still reckoning.” —John Hodgman, author of Vacationland
“In the 1850s, Yankees saw the South as a foreign country and the New York Times sent Frederick Law Olmsted on an undercover mission to interpret it for readers. It was a daring and inspired move, and so is Tony Horwitz’s retracing of Olmsted’s path from the Potomac to the Rio Grande. Spoiler alert, things don’t always go well for our dauntless guide, but they sure do for the reader. This is one of the smartest, funniest, and most illuminating books about the South and Texas, and about our own divided times, I’ve had the pleasure to read.” —Bryan Burrough, author of Days of Rage, The Big Rich and Public Enemies
About the Author
Product details
- Publisher : Penguin Press; First Edition (May 14, 2019)
- Language : English
- Hardcover : 496 pages
- ISBN-10 : 1101980281
- ISBN-13 : 978-1101980286
- Item Weight : 1.75 pounds
- Dimensions : 9.53 x 1.61 x 6.54 inches
- Best Sellers Rank: #464,860 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #66 in General Southern US Travel Guides
- #91 in U.S. Abolition of Slavery History
- #1,477 in Travelogues & Travel Essays
- Customer Reviews:
About the author
Tony is a native of Washington, D.C., and a graduate of Brown University and Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism. He spent a decade overseas as a foreign correspondent, mainly covering wars and conflicts for The Wall Street Journal. After returning to the U.S., he won the Pulitzer Prize for national reporting and wrote for The New Yorker before becoming a full-time author.
His books include the national and New York Times bestsellers, Confederates in the Attic, Blue Latitudes, Baghdad Without a Map and A Voyage Long and Strange. Midnight Rising, was named a New York Times Notable Book of 2011; one of the year’s ten best books by Library Journal; and won the 2012 William Henry Seward Award for Excellence in Civil War Biography. His latest, BOOM, is his first ebook, about a journey through the tar sands and along the route of the Keystone XL pipeline.
Tony has also been a fellow at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University, and a visiting scholar at the John Carter Brown Library at Brown University. He lives with his wife, Geraldine Brooks, and their sons, Nathaniel and Bizu, on Martha’s Vineyard in Massachusetts.
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Customers find the book very enjoyable, intriguing, and engaging. They praise the writing quality as well-written and delightful. Readers appreciate the educational value, saying the book is informative and insightful. They also find the humor wickedly funny, witty, and entertaining.
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Customers find the book enjoyable, intriguing, and engaging. They say it's fabulous and hard to put down. Readers mention that the narrative is an expertly crafted integration of Frederick Olmstead's book and the author's.
"...It is a superb and worthy follow up.Please don't be dissuaded from this title after reading some of its detractors' uninformed reviews...." Read more
"...devoted to mudding and Horwitz’s misadventures on a mule are enormously entertaining...." Read more
"Excellent book by Tony doing what he does best, traveling in the foot steps of a historic traveler namely Frederick Law Olmsted , traveling through..." Read more
"...Particularly strong and memorable experiences occurred the further he traveled into the deep South, New Orleans, the cotton plantations, and Texas...." Read more
Customers find the writing quality of the book well-written. They appreciate the historical comparison between pre-civil war US and the current situation. Readers also appreciate the colorful descriptions of geography and people. Overall, they say the book is a thoughtful comparison of the southern trips made by Fred Almsted.
"...Not me, and yet, I couldn't be more wrong.It's well written and researched...." Read more
"...The food is also very descriptive, frequently fried and spicy and almost killed the Aussie...." Read more
"...All are extremely well written and make this book quite a wonderful read. I recommend it highly." Read more
"This well written book details the author's journeys in 2013-2016 following the trail of Frederick Olmsted's travels through parts America in the..." Read more
Customers find the book insightful, informative, and enlightening. They say it provides an important perspective with contemporary relevance. Readers also mention the author is truthful and honest.
"...Horwitz comes across as a truthful and honest fact gatherer, fair and impartial, ponient and knowledgable...." Read more
"By far the best part of this enlightening piece of journalism was learning more about how the scenes of American life during his journeys through..." Read more
"...entree into the life and work of Olmsted and an insightful commentary on present day America. Loved it." Read more
"...his stories of meeting people so unlike him (and me) and gives a great dose of history without the reader realizing it...." Read more
Customers find the humor in the book wickedly funny, witty, and entertaining. They also describe the author as likable and fearless.
"...it is a book that encourages reflection, but can also be funny, sad, and troubling." Read more
"...Some are poignant, others are quite funny (such as the origins of the Marx Brothers in Friedlandia TX!)...." Read more
"...He's also quite funny and witty. I am about 2/3 through and have thoroughly enjoyed every page!" Read more
"...I enjoyed it because Horwitz is both fearless and likable." Read more
Customers have mixed opinions about the uplifting content of the book. Some mention it's thought-provoking, while others say it's disappointing and dismaying.
"...it is a book that encourages reflection, but can also be funny, sad, and troubling." Read more
"...humor of his Australian travel companion, Andrew Denton, hardly lifts the mood...." Read more
"...The book is an entertaining and enjoyable read, while being thought-provoking at the same time." Read more
"...No, it's not uplifting but if you're into reality then this is a big dose." Read more
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Please don't be dissuaded from this title after reading some of its detractors' uninformed reviews. Several Amazon reviewers openly acknowledge being "Southern" and never having read the book, or they "start it" but "never finish." I understand it can be hard reading about your state's or your culture's ugly history. I live in Southern California. I see plenty of things that embarrass me and I wish they were not true; however, that doesn't make the criticisms--about the South or SoCal--wrong or inaccurate. Horwitz's criticisms and insights are invariably accurate and insightful.
He takes the reader on a journey through the South while juxtaposing his adventures to a similar trip taken 165 years by the architect of New York's Central Park, Fred Omlsted. Who would think such a book would be interesting, entertaining or relevant to today's America??? Not me, and yet, I couldn't be more wrong.
It's well written and researched. Horwitz comes across as a truthful and honest fact gatherer, fair and impartial, ponient and knowledgable.
In the end, Horwitz suggests that today's rift between Red and Blue can be bridged. While I'm skeptical, I'll happily defer to an unbiased arbiter like Tony Horwitz.
Well done and R.I.P.
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.