Review: Spying on the South: An Odyssey Across the American Divide

Spying on the South: An Odyssey Across the American Divide by Tony Horwitz
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This is a book I would have enjoyed experiencing and writing. Right before the Civil War, Frederick Law Olmsted traveled around the South to gauge sentiments and thoughts and relay them to the North. The result was the book A Journey through Texas.

This book follows along the same path, to see how things and people have changed, and how peoples' views and opinions on race relations have diverged, as well as other details (what became of the Germantowns, crossing over the border, etc.). This book was written on the eve of Trump being elected, and so draw whatever parallels you wish.

The author also provides more background on Olmsted and his brother, which gave more context behind the first book.



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Review: A Journey through Texas: Or a Saddle-Trip on the Southwestern Frontier

A Journey through Texas: Or a Saddle-Trip on the Southwestern Frontier by Frederick Law Olmsted
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

The author of this book is a New Yorker (who designed Central Park) and took a trip to Texas, Mexico, and surrounding areas in the 1850s and documented his travels. This book is everything you could want and more. An outside gives his honest opinion of the people, places and of course the prejudices of the place. The prejudices are obviously on the side of the Southern white Americans, but also the author's, which become evident.

However, the author (and his brother) are very much against slavery, and you see their impression of slaveholders go from low to extremely low, especially after encountering the Germans, who tend to be against slavery (and are surprisingly many). I found myself going through Google and Google maps to follow along, so I was very happy to hear about the book "Spying on the South: An Odyssey Across the American Divide", wherein someone follows along the same itinerary, giving an update on everything covered in this book. I look forward to reading that as well.

Also very interesting to read about crossing the border into Mexico, and seeing how race relations differed there (they pretended to be German, since they felt it was dangerous to be American there, given the acrimony). Their encounters with native Americans at the time were interesting as well, and I found myself wishing there had been more.


A very pleasant surprise to have found this book, and I'm amazed it isn't more well-known.




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