Analysis of Tony Horwitz's Book, Confederates in the Attic

The American Civil war is considered to be one of the most defining moments in American history. It is the war that shaped the social, political and economic structure with a broader prospect of unifying the states and hence leading to this ideal nation of unified states as it is today. In the book “Confederates in the Attic”, the author Tony Horwitz gives an account of his year long exploration through the places where the U.S. Civil War was fought. He took his childhood interest in the Civil War to a new level by traveling around the South in search of Civil War relics, battle fields, and most importantly stories. The title “Confederates in the Attic”: Dispatches from the Unfinished Civil War carries two meanings in Tony Horwitz’s thoughtful and entertaining exploration of the role of the American Civil War in the modern world of the South. The first meaning alludes to Horwitz’s personal interest in the war. As the grandson of a Russian Jew, Horwitz was raised in the North but early in his childhood developed a fascination with the South’s myth and history. He tells readers that as a child he wrote about the war and even constructed a mural of significant battles in the attic of his own home. The second meaning refers to regional memory, the importance or lack thereof yet attached to this momentous national event. As Horwitz visits the sites throughout the South, he encounters unreconstructed rebels who still hold to outdated beliefs. He also meets groups of “re-enactors,” devotees who attempt to relive the experience of the soldier’s life and death. One of his most disheartening and yet unsurprising realizations is that attitudes towards the war divide along racial lines. Too many whites wrap the memory in nostalgia, refusing...

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...et the wrongs they’ve suffered, even if these tribulations were justified. But mostly forgetting history poses a serious threat to the future. Sometimes we do need to know where we’ve been in order to know where we’re going. However, remembering is also a sticky subject. Debates erupt about which history is correct, and which should be remembered. It’s also a matter of enthusiasm as much as anything else. Remembering the Civil War as many Northerners and Southerners remember the war, as a war that happened, had certain ramifications, and otherwise doesn’t affect contemporary life, is much easier to justify and deal with than a zealous attitude toward a "Lost Cause." It is just that great enthusiasm leads to reverence for ancestors that do not necessarily deserve it. Still, it is not as if any individual can decide for another which ancestors are worth revering.