If only historians could write like journalists...

Over the weekend I read Tony Horwitz's Confederates in the Attic (see the the sidebar below for a link). Like most books by journalists, its eminently readable, filled with engaging anecdotes and striking descriptions. The pages fly by.

But, like many books by journalists, the analysis presented was overly personalized and a mite superficial.

To get my expectations out of the way: the book is for a class on memory and historical consciousness that I'll be taking this spring (yeah, I'm a dork and have started to read the books for my classes before those classes even start). I tend to hold books that I encounter in an academic setting to a higher standard than something I pick up on a whim.

The book is largely a recounting of Horwitz's travels through the South in search of what the Civil War means to Southerners almost a century and a half after the war's close. Horwitz has a personal interest in the war, too, and his journey is a rekindling of his childhood fascination with the conflict. He encounters a wide cast of characters, from the "liberal Confederate" reënactor who rubs bacon grease in his beard to a young black tourguide at the state capitol in Montgomery, chockful of Confederate memorials.

Every story brings to light some aspect of contemporary Southern culture, complete with all its contradictions. Where Horwitz fails is his inability to explain or even fully recognize those contradictions. Why do some Southerners cling to the War, rejoicing upon discovering ancestors that fought for the Cause? Why do others display apathy towards the conflict, arguing that the past is past and therefore unimportant?

It's entirely possible, of course, that answers to these questions don't exist. It's absurd to think that the South has a unified view towards the Civil War. But to present such a multifaceted picture of the South without delving a bit deeper limits Horwitz's work to a travelogue. A fascinating and enjoyable travelogue, but a travelogue nonetheless.