Spying on the South—Tony Horwitz.

The great landscape architect, Frederick Law Olmsted, worked as a journalist for many years before his long career designing such landmarks as New York’s Central Park, the Biltmore Estate, an so many other urban parks and landscapes throughout the US.   Just before the Civil War, he traveled throughout the south and wrote about his journeys for the New York Times. Tony Horwitz researched his travels and spent several years following Olmsted’s travels, and his new book is a fascinating, painful and sometimes hilarious look at the south of the 1850s and today.  Mr. Horwitz passed away suddenly last month at the age of 60, and his passing is a true loss to his many readers and to American journalism.