APRIL 2021 - AudioFile
Ty Seidule is a West Point history professor, not an actor or even a professional narrator, but his outrage makes up for this lack of virtuosity. As a boy in Virginia, Seidule put all of mankind on a scale of one to ten, rating Lee an eleven—with Jesus coming in at five. But the study of history flipped the boy in love with the Lost Cause into one of its fiercest critics. He concluded that Lee committed treason. Slavery was a business, he learned, as cruel as it was practical. Lee didn’t just own slaves, he had them whipped and then had salt water poured into their wounds. In a calm, teacherly voice Seidule lists the horrors. B.H.C. © AudioFile 2021, Portland, Maine
Publishers Weekly
10/19/2020
West Point history professor emeritus Seidule (coeditor, West Point History of the American Revolution) delivers a ruminative and carefully researched look at how the Confederacy is understood and memorialized a century and a half after its defeat. Frustrated by his realization that so many white Americans from all parts of the nation have “grown up with the same myths, really lies, about the Civil War” that he learned as a child in Virginia, Seidule takes apart the bedrocks of “Lost Cause” mythology, presenting evidence that the Civil War was truly about slavery, not states’ rights; that Robert E. Lee’s high moral character has been exaggerated; and that the North won because of its strategic superiority as much as its manufacturing capabilities. Seidule also delves into the history of lynchings in Walton County, Ga., where he attended high school, and the ways in which the U.S. military valorizes the Confederacy. He contends that, with the exception of an “extremist fringe,” most Americans who accept Confederate mythology do so out of ignorance rather than racism. Some readers may question Seidule’s assertion that the tide is already turning against the Lost Cause, but he makes a valiant and well-supported effort to bring essential facts to light. This heartfelt history has a worthy message. (Jan.)
From the Publisher
NPR's "Books We Love" Staff Pick, 2021
One of Washington Independent Review of Books' "Favorite Books of 2021"
“With the vigor of a prosecutor, Seidule dismantles the near-sacred beliefs among many Southerners that the Civil War was a noble cause to preserve a way of life that benefitted everyone…an extraordinary and courageous book, a confessional of America’s great sins of slavery and racial oppression, a call to confront our wrongs, reject our mythologized racist past and resolve to create a just future for all.” –Associated Press
"A powerful and introspective look into white Americans’ continuing romance with the Confederacy, and the lasting damage that has done." —New York Times Book Review
“Seidule has written a vital account of the destructiveness of the Lost Cause ideology throughout American history. Perhaps the best attribute of this fine book is the author’s honesty. It’s difficult to imagine a more timely book than “Robert E. Lee and Me.” At this pivotal moment, when we are debating some of the most painful aspects of our history, Seidule’s unsparing assessment of the Lost Cause provides an indispensable contribution to the discussion.” –The Washington Post
"In this fine book Ty Seidule scorches us with the truth and rivets us with his fierce sense of moral urgency. I can't think of a better book to enrich and invigorate our national discussion about race and memory and the troubled legacy of Robert E. Lee and the Confederacy." —Ron Chernow, bestselling author of Hamilton
“Retired Brig. Gen. Ty Seidule’s gripping Robert E. Lee and Me is required reading for those wanting to participate in the conversation concerning Confederate memorialization, the “Lost Cause,” or the troubled history of race in America.” –Army Magazine
“Robert E. Lee and Me is a cri de coeur, one man’s journey to humanity and his salvation from the pernicious lies of white supremacy. Few others could write this book with such sterling credibility. Only a man of the South, a Virginian, and a soldier with a Ph.D. in history could so persuasively mount the case against a national hero, and label him a traitor.” –Washington Independent Review of Books
“Ty Seidule brilliantly and brutally deconstructs [the Lost Cause myth]…an extraordinary book that, by chronicling our darkest American moments, offers hope that we might one day see greater light.” –Los Angeles Review of Books
"A carefully considered and compulsively readable account of the Lost Cause’s rise and resilience." —Civil War Monitor
“Seidule openly confronts his own indifference to racism, and this absorbing book will be of value to anyone interested in how history informs our present.” —Library Journal (starred review)
“Ruminative and carefully researched....a valiant and well supported effort to bring essential facts to light. This heartfelt history has a worthy message.” –Publishers Weekly
“Seidule doesn’t just knock his boyhood idol off the pedestal. He issues an uncompromising, searing, full-throated indictment of Robert E. Lee as a historically misrepresented figure and denounces the many institutions that have given currency to the 'Lost Cause' mythology through the years.” —Christian Science Monitor
“A beautiful, often searing meditation on race, history, and the American narrative. Evocative and provocative, Robert E. Lee and Me is honest, wry, and utterly engaging.” —Rick Atkinson, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The British are Coming
“This book is a must read. With courage, grace, and humility, Seidule invites us to reexamine our past and challenges us by asking: ‘as a nation, how can we know where are going if we don’t know where we have been?’ This book speaks truth to power and truth in love. Written by a true patriot who clearly loves his country and wants the best for her, Robert E. Lee and Me leads us to a better place as a nation and reminds us all of our founding motto E Pluribus Unum - out of many, one.” —Mitch Landrieu, bestselling author of In The Shadow of Statues: A White Southerner Confronts History
“In this profoundly moving memoir distinguished by moral courage and intellectual integrity, Ty Seidule chronicles his agonizing journey of discovery…Everyone interested in the Civil War and its continuing importance in American culture should read this unflinchingly honest book.” —Professor James M. McPherson, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Battle Cry of Freedom
“General Ty Seidule has written a book for our times, one every American should read. By seamlessly weaving his impressive, and fascinating, autobiographical story into a superb rendering of the pernicious myths surrounding Robert E. Lee and the Lost Cause of the Confederacy, he has opened a window into one of the darker elements of our present-day culture, and one that helps explain what has happened in our recent political life as well...a tour de force.” —Charles B. Dew, Ephraim Williams Professor of American History at Williams College
“Searingly passionate, mercilessly honest, Robert E. Lee and Me is one of the most deeply felt books you are likely to encounter. Not only is it a soldier’s assessment of a military legend, it is an American’s report on the state of the Union...a must read for anyone who has ever thought about the meaning of duty, honor, country.” —Randy Roberts, Pulitzer Prize-nominated author of Blood Brothers
“A timely, powerful, compelling – and courageous – book. In Robert E. Lee and Me, Brigadier General Ty Seidule takes readers on a fascinating intellectual journey...This is a book of enormous importance and tremendous insight, a book that only a true southerner – and a true historian – could have written.” —General David Petraeus, US Army (Ret.), former Commander of Coalition Forces in Iraq and in Afghanistan and former Director of the CIA
"A son of the South, a professional soldier, and an accomplished historian, Ty Seidule has written a book that is as timely as it is profound. Nominally centered on dismantling the myths surrounding the Confederacy's most famous field commander, Robert E. Lee and Me does much more, offering a searingly honest reflection on slavery, race, and the imperative of honesty in addressing America's past.” —Professor Andrew Bacevich, bestselling author of The Limits of Power: The End of American Exceptionalism
"Soldier and historian Ty Seidule's memoir courageously counters the myths, half-truths, and outright falsehoods about the Confederacy that our institutions perpetuate to this day. It proves both essential and riveting reading." —John H. Morrow, Jr., Pritzker Prize-winning author and Franklin Professor of History, University of Georgia
“Ty Seidule has written an extraordinary tale of a great change, but unlike most, his is one of intellectual, cultural, and moral transformation....a powerful story of a southern man who confronted the myths of his youth and concluded that there is no room in the United States Army or American society for Lost Cause mythology.” —Joseph Glatthaar, author of General Lee’s Army and Stephenson Distinguished Professor of History at University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill
Library Journal
★ 11/01/2020
In 2015, Seidule produced a short video making the case that the Southern states seceded from the United States in order to create a slave-based republic. The video went viral and Seidule, a U.S. army colonel and historian at West Point, became a target of Confederate apologists, even receiving death threats. This book grew out of that video, and in it the author examines the power that the "Lost Cause" myth had over him when he was young and how he came to realize its fiction. Seidule grew up attending schools in Virginia and Georgia where the Lost Cause and veneration of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee were part of the culture. As he began to study the American Civil War and post-Reconstruction eras, he learned that the version of history he was taught was inaccurate. He makes a solid case that leaders of the Confederate states should not be honored because they betrayed their oaths to uphold the Constitution and in fact fought to destroy the very nation they were sworn to protect. VERDICT Seidule openly confronts his own indifference to racism, and this absorbing book will be of value to anyone interested in how history informs our present.—Michael Farrell, Reformed Theological Seminary, Orlando, FL
APRIL 2021 - AudioFile
Ty Seidule is a West Point history professor, not an actor or even a professional narrator, but his outrage makes up for this lack of virtuosity. As a boy in Virginia, Seidule put all of mankind on a scale of one to ten, rating Lee an eleven—with Jesus coming in at five. But the study of history flipped the boy in love with the Lost Cause into one of its fiercest critics. He concluded that Lee committed treason. Slavery was a business, he learned, as cruel as it was practical. Lee didn’t just own slaves, he had them whipped and then had salt water poured into their wounds. In a calm, teacherly voice Seidule lists the horrors. B.H.C. © AudioFile 2021, Portland, Maine
