Spying on the South: An Odyssey Across the American Divide

For a Connecticut Yankee, the South in 1850 was alien, often hostile territory. Yet for a young Frederick Law Olmsted, it would prove to be part of an extraordinary journey. As an undercover correspondent for the up-and-coming New York Times, Olmsted traveled the South by horseback, steamboat, and stagecoach, seeking dialogue and common ground. His vivid dispatches were revelatory for readers of his day.

Rediscovering Olmsted amidst the discord and polarization of our own time, Tony Horwitz embarks on his own adventure, following Olmsted's tracks down the Mississippi and Ohio Rivers, into bayou Louisiana, across Texas, and far off beaten paths to discover bracing vestiges and strange new mutations of the Cotton Kingdom.

The final book by a beloved, Pulitzer Prize-winning historian, Spying on the South is an intrepid, often hilarious journey through an outsized American landscape and a masterpiece in the tradition of Great Plains, Bad Land, and the author's own classic, Confederates in the Attic.