Sad News: Confederates in the Attic Author Tony Horwitz Dies, Age 60

Horwitz viewed American History and contemporary media dysfunctions:

TH:  People are staking out extremes at either end, rather than saying there's a common history here," he told Fresh Air [National Public Radio] during 1998.

TH: "There's this attitude towards history that we have to lobby for it now — almost that objective truth doesn't exist, and that it's kind of hopeless to look for it. And that instead you just sort of stake out your position and cling to it in the hopes that that you'll swing the pendulum your way," he added. "I found this very dispiriting."

TH: "And I hope they occasionally remember me," Horwitz wrote recently of the many Southerners he met in researching his books. 

"Not as a Fox-induced boogeyman on the bar TV, one of those 'coastal elites' dripping with contempt and condescension toward Middle America. But rather, as that guy from 'up north' who appeared on the next bar stool one Friday after work, asked about their job and life and hopes for the future, and thought what they said was important enough to write down."

Full Text and a review of Horwitz's most recent book Spying on the South available: National Public Radio 

CWL:  I met Tony Horwitz at a Civil War reenactment in the early 2000s. If I recall correctly, it was in the middle the Manassas reenactment of 2001 and hot as blazes. He was not a reenactor on this day but a journalist standing in the midst of reenactors who did not recognize him. 'The battle' had just been fought and the reenactors were meandering off the field. We discussed the variety of opinions about the book. He was well aware of the criticisms and the praises about Confederates In The Attic.  I asked him if he would ever write a follow up book. He replied that the publisher was begging for a sequel but that his other interests would come first. I thanked him for Confederates In The Attic.  

Tony Horwitz, may you rest in peace.

Emerging Civil War review of Midnight Rising: John Brown and the Raid That Started the Civil War

Wall Street Journal obituary here

New York Times obituary here