Spying on the South: Travels with Frederick Law Olmsted in
a Fractured Land, Tony
Horwitz (4.0)
I found this book fulfilled three purposes: it illustrated
the interesting life and journey of Frederick Olmsted, the co-designer of
Central Park; it showed the differences between Olmsted’s pre Civil War South
and our current South; and it shined a light on those between the coasts who
voted for our current President. Horwitz does this by following Olmsted’s
journey and toggling between Olmsted’s writings and what Horwitz experiences.
The book started a little slowly, but became more compelling as they both meet
various interesting characters and places. A big component of the book is
Olmsted’s strong feelings against slavery and how that was strengthened during
his trip, which occurred just before the Civil War started. I appreciated
Horwitz’s desire to follow the original journey exactly, which that led to some
precarious routes and destinations. I was sad to read that Mr. Horwitz died
suddenly a few months ago while on tour for this book. His earlier book,
‘Confederates in the Attic’, is highly recommended by many.
No comments:
Post a Comment