The Readin Roos

The book opens with author, Tony Horwitz, making a pit stop while on the road, which happens be in Plymouth, Massachusetts. It’s while wandering around Plymouth that Horwitz realizes that his knowledge of the early exploration and settlment of European America is limited to scraps of knowledge from elementary school. Upon reviewing the history of European settlement in America Horwitz discovers a major chasm in his education; by the time the first English settled in North America other Europeans had already reached half of the forty-eight states that make up the continental United States.

Tony Horwitz, a Pulitzer Prize winning journalist, explores the history of the Civil War and its aftermath on South over 100 years later. He examines both the original battlefields and the modern battles played out in communities across the South due to the lasting effects of the Civil War on the region.

Horwitz visits each Confederate state and writes about the people and places he encounters.