Following in the footsteps of Frederick Law Olmsted, Tony Horowitz travels through a wide swath of the southern United States, and readers cannot possibly ask for a better trip to take them deeply through both past present. Horowitz explores the history and present day of every stop on his trail in a wonderfully human level that’s so intimate and even raw at times that I felt like I had been able to journey right alongside him all without having to leave my home. There was so much to learn and experience including a plantation museum bucking the trend, the descendants of radical German settlers deep in the heart of Texas, and of course the fascinating life that Olmsted lived before he become the monumentally influential landscape architect the most know him as.

To use an understatement, I was quite saddened and shocked to look him up after finishing this book only to learn that he had passed away recently. Although we are definitely poorer for having lost Tony Horowitz, we are also definitely the richer for the great works he has left behind as part of his legacy as a journalist and writer. I definitely look forward to tackling his past books when I get the opportunity, and zealously recommending “Spying on the South” to any friend, family member and acquaintance with even so much as an interest in American history.