Spying on the South
by Tony Horwitz | History | This book has not been rated.
ISBN: 1101980281 Global Overview for this book
ISBN: 1101980281 Global Overview for this book
This book is in a Controlled Release!
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Found this 2019 476 page hardback here on the shelf in the Bellevue house. I'm sure I picked it up somewhere. I've always found Tony Horwitz to be quite readable.
31 July 2022 - I greatly appreciate anyone trying to cross the great divide between red and blue America, based on Frederick Law Olmstead's travels through the South, and the author's attempts to recreate the journey.
"The Yankee in Olmstead disapproved of this fixation on self-esteem, inherited status, and hoary codes of conduct. 'What a man shows that he thinks of himself is certainly of considerable consequence in estimating his value to others,' he wrote. "But it is not everything, or most essential. What he wishes to be, labors to be, is, perhaps, of more consequence.'
Olmstead also sensed a dangerour insecurity underlying the South's violent c ode of honor. Slavery accustomed whites to deference, 'uncontrolled authority,' and vigilance against any hint of insubordination. They were 'always in readiness to chastise, to strike down, to slay, upon what they shall individually judge to be sufficient provocation.'"
"The opportunity [of the job of Central Park Supervisor] appealed to him on multiple levels, apart from his desperate need for a paycheck. One theme of Olmstead's evolving critique of the South was that slavery prolonged and exacerbated the "frontier" state of society, a condition he saw as makeshift, dispersed, and lacking in common purpose and spirit His encounters with Southern gentry had also stirred his missionary impulse to "elevate" the North, as a rebuke to aristocratic slaveholders and European monarchists who claimed the masses were incapable of uplift and self-governance."
31 July 2022 - I greatly appreciate anyone trying to cross the great divide between red and blue America, based on Frederick Law Olmstead's travels through the South, and the author's attempts to recreate the journey.
"The Yankee in Olmstead disapproved of this fixation on self-esteem, inherited status, and hoary codes of conduct. 'What a man shows that he thinks of himself is certainly of considerable consequence in estimating his value to others,' he wrote. "But it is not everything, or most essential. What he wishes to be, labors to be, is, perhaps, of more consequence.'
Olmstead also sensed a dangerour insecurity underlying the South's violent c ode of honor. Slavery accustomed whites to deference, 'uncontrolled authority,' and vigilance against any hint of insubordination. They were 'always in readiness to chastise, to strike down, to slay, upon what they shall individually judge to be sufficient provocation.'"
"The opportunity [of the job of Central Park Supervisor] appealed to him on multiple levels, apart from his desperate need for a paycheck. One theme of Olmstead's evolving critique of the South was that slavery prolonged and exacerbated the "frontier" state of society, a condition he saw as makeshift, dispersed, and lacking in common purpose and spirit His encounters with Southern gentry had also stirred his missionary impulse to "elevate" the North, as a rebuke to aristocratic slaveholders and European monarchists who claimed the masses were incapable of uplift and self-governance."
passed along to Leland
passed along to Leland
