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Better Off Without 'Em: A Northern Manifesto For Southern Secession (2012)

by Chuck Thompson(Favorite Author)

3.55 of 5 Votes: 3

ISBN

1451616651 (ISBN13: 9781451616651)

languge

English

genre

History & Biography

publisher

Simon & Schuster

review 1: This is a funny book, basically one huge rant. While I agree with the author's greater points, he also comes across as a d-k. He often goes out of his way to make fun of his interview subjects, even if they are generally sympathetic to his thesis. Making fun of rednecks and hillbillies is one thing, but being mean to academic and professional interview subjects is too mean spirited, even for this project.
review 2: This book veers too hard between being two separate things: 1) A serious review of the practical reasons for, and implications of, a succession of basically "The South" sans Texas from the current United States and 2) An attempted humor book where a jackass Yankee crams as many juvenile (if often pretty fuckin' funny) jokes about the South as possibl... moree into the text.Thompson doesn't mix these two disparate concepts particularly well, resulting in a disjointed read that could've been much better if it focused on one or the other.Frankly, I'm surprised the author didn't straight-up get his ass beat multiple times on his journeys through the South, if half of what he writes as being true about his approach is accurate.That said, I still enjoyed the book due to the insights it brings to the fundamentals of Southern culture that make it fundamentally incompatible with the rest of the Union (Note: I am a lifelong secular Chicagoan/northerner, and firmly believe that winning the Civil War was the dumbest thing the United States ever did this side of Prohibition). The reams of detail provided, and individual anecdotes that provide some emotional impact of various Southern ailments such as their segregated evangelical religious structures that dominate everything, the seeming hatred of public funding for education and its many and miserable effects on today's southern life, the "good ol' boy" nature of networked politics and business throughout the south, the willingness to union-bust and lowball northern states that demand decent employee protections from business... in this sense, the book is good. It provides a tidy sampler of the myriad issues that keep most southern states firmly at the bottom of almost every list of states ranked by achievement or quality of life, and why their odds of ever breaking these cycles are abysmal.Thompson, realizing that actually kicking the South out is unfeasible, doesn't spend too much time trying to create a coherent argument for that happening. It just serves as a nice framework to discuss the various reasons why the south is so different and the cultural clash between them and the North so severe. I and, I suspect, the book itself could've done without the repeated, jarring inserts of straight-up insults towards southern culture. Thompson seems to really want to establish his bona fides as a Northwest, Portland liberal who can't stand anything about the South, and it ends up overselling his case. We get it. Stories he digs up such as the black preacher showing off his donated-funds-bought BMW 7 series to his impoverished congregation, or a southern school district dominated by whites going WAY out of its way to close a high-performing black school just because it made the white schools look bad... those tales prove his point very, very well, without being larded up with gratuitous stereotype jokes.The section on college football, even the author prefaces with "this is probably gonna be out of place but it's a hobbyhorse of mine so either skip it or enjoy", I actually enjoyed just because it added some new info to my ever-growing list of reasons why ESPN should be destroyed. Overall, a disappointing but still worthy read. A decent general pop survey/summary of the issues afflicting the South today that make it almost more of an enemy to the north today than it did in the 1860's. less

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