Better Off Without 'Em: A Northern Manifesto for Southern Secession

by Chuck Thompson

Dubbed “savagely funny” (The New York Times) and “wickedly entertaining” (San Francisco Chronicle), acclaimed travel writer Chuck Thompson embarks on a controversial road trip to prove that both sides might be better off if the South were to secede once and for all.“He’s a travel writer like Anthony Bourdain is a food writer,” writes The Oregonian about Chuck Thompson. In Better Off Without ’Em, the biggest book of his career, Thompson offers a heavily researched, serious inquiry into national divides that is unabashedly controversial, often uproarious, and always thought-provoking.     By crunching numbers, interviewing experts, and traveling the not-so-former Confederacy, Thompson—an openly disgruntled liberal Northwesterner—makes a compelling case for Southern secession. Along the way, he interacts with possum-hunting conservatives, trailer park lifers, prayer warriors, and other regional trendsetters, showing that the South’s perverse church-driven morality, politics, and personality never have and never will define the region as a fully committed part of the United States. Better Off Without ’Em is a deliberately provocative book whose insight, humor, fierce and fearless politics, and sheer nerve will spark a national debate that is perhaps long overdue.

Genres: Politics, Nonfiction, Humor, History, Travel, Religion, Sociology

336 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2012

Reviews

[Andy · Rating 1 out of 5]

Just terrible. One of worst nonfiction books I've read in hardback in years -- all the wit of an anonymous internet commenter married to the erudition of a suburban teenage straight-edge hardcore band. The prose is so relentlessly crass and moronic it should have been typeset in all caps. Thompson is the sort of writer that uses the term "sheeple" unironically, if that gives you a clue.

The worst part is while I am also a Northern pinko that generally agrees with him on the sorry state of the union and think a "what-if/why-not" exercise like this could have been funny and thought-provoking, he's so unpleasant, discursive, sloppy and condescending that after a few pages, your eyes just glaze over.

Since the book is 40% nonfiction travel-writing that attempts a modicum of journalistic objectivity, and 60% vein-popping harangue, you end up with absurd, graceless fragments like this gem: "...The South was not simply prepared for war, but had a purple hard-on for it. [28]" Good thing I have a footnote for that! I might need to verify that the hard-on was purple and not crimson.

[Wanda · Rating 4 out of 5]

Absolutely hilarious, extended argument for lobbing off the south and letting them have their own country. This was a book that simultaneously made me laugh out loud and cringe. The author, a wickedly funny and talented wordsmith, is a travel author, whose premise is that the vast cultural and intellectual divide between the south and the north in the U.S. begs for a split into two separate nations. While researching this book, he traveled through the bible belt in the U.S. south, interviewing academics, "common folks" and those politicians who would speak to him. What he discovered (one might say what confirmed what he already knew) was fear, mindless religiosity, racism and sheer ignorance of anything but a hyper conservative world view. It is scary stuff, especially when you think that these folks actually vote -- and breed. The scariest thing of all is that they persist in NOT understanding the disconnect between their own conviction that the government and taxes are evil and the fact that many of their states are addicted to the teet of federal aid. Mississippi, Arkansas, South Carolina, and Louisiana take in far more federal dollars -- generated by us Northern liberals -- than they pay out in taxes. But when this is pointed out, they change the subject and refuse to discuss it.
The book is chock full of great anecdotes and observations, as well as well researched statistics. The only drawback that I might mention, and what led me to only give it 4 stars instead of 5, is that I know for a fact that there are pockets of sanity in the south - e.g. Austin, TX and the Research Triangle in N.C. -- which he does not mention. Because of this, the book reads a bit more like a polemic screed than a legitimate argument. Having said that, there is a great deal of truth in what Thompson reveals. Highly recommend this one.

[J.M. Hushour · Rating 5 out of 5]

Sorry, South, but this is some funny shit, guaranteed to educate, amuse, and infuriate. Thompson will have you giddily tittering at the end of each reading with his zany wanderings through the modern South, gathering evidence for his titular contention that, yes, in fact, we should have two separate countries.
Recent events show that this probably is an even more viable idea than it was a decade ago when Thompson wrote this book. Running at a close-to-even 50/50 idiocy rate to the point where people are literally letting themselves die and have no compunctions about endangering others, it's clear that something is fundamentally wrong with a good chunk of American society. Fuck 'em, Thompson says, and I'm inclined to agree with him. If they wanna die, have no civil society or social structure like government-provided healthcare (no mean thing in the unhealthiest part of our "nation") and basically live like amoral and fundamentally un-Christian swine, have at it, South!
I'm from the South, too! What gets me the most is the Confederate-flag waving swine I see in the PNW, where I live now, about as far from the South as you can get, so the borders won't be as neat as Thompson wants, but that's fine. Folks can migrate.

[David V. · Rating 5 out of 5]

Received as an ARC from the publisher.
WOOHOO!!!!! and HOLY CRAP!!!!!! I can barely wait until this book is released in August and the s--- hits the fan. What a great time for me to be working in a bookstore! Finally an author who tells it like it is. It would be even funnier if it weren't so true, but I did laugh out loud--often. I've known for years that the South held an awful lot of power in this country, but I never understood how and why. I certainly do now, and I don't like it. Cheers to Chuck Thompson. He compares the North to the South and concludes that the North should've let the South secede when it had the chance. The South is an economic drain on the rest of the country. This book will cause heads to explode! I wonder how many signings he'll have below the M-D Line?!

[Joe · Rating 2 out of 5]

Political hate books are terrible even when the author is on "your team." They are all just a different form of terrible even if you agree or enjoy the book, if that makes sense. I picked this book because I thought it would be funny (it was, at times) and because I tend to find much of Southern politics frustrating. Laughing about your frustration might seem enjoyable.

The author does not provide new information, but he he does give anyone who wants to rag on the South plenty of statistics, anecdotes and other information to use when trying to prove objectively whatever negative he or she may want to prove about the South. Some of that was even interesting. But, ultimately, it's a song to the choir and, although Thompson tries to really address actual secession as a possibility it's status as a farce becomes clearer still. He should have just made it a rant / joke book, but trying to make the issue academic just felt like a stretch.

If you already know that race remains an issue in the South, that they love football, that they have an obesity problem, that their schools are terrible, their politics angry, that they receive way more federal money than they pay, and that their BBQ is delicious, then you really won't learn anything new. You may, however, get some useful background to use in an argument. But, again, I think we all agree on those things anyway. The argument has always been that Southerners are not bothered by any of that and Northerners think it should bother them.

The moral of the story is that even angry people on both sides don't "really" want to split the country. And, I think we're comfortable just being frustrated with each other sometimes.

[Angus McKeogh · Rating 5 out of 5]

As a proud Southerner, born and raised, I still found this book insightful and funny. If you can’t recognize your own faults then you're just a bitter asshole anyway. Hilarious stuff. Great read.

[Nathan · Rating 2 out of 5]

Despite its best intentions, Thompson's book ended up being precisely the type of "Southern sociology" that scholars should really avoid. Thompson was so caught up in his own self-described Yankee superiority that he simply couldn't see past his project of bashing the South and allowing critical insights from noted Southern scholars such as James Cobb to perhaps give him some much-needed nuance. This is not to say that I disagreed with many of Thompson's findings (after all, I'm a queer, liberal, almost PhD Southerner), but it disturbs me when writers don't allow stubborn things like facts, changing social circumstances, and evolving attitudes to dissuade them from writing ill-informed "hit pieces." In fact, in ignoring or eliding these self-same items (facts, etc.), Thompson inadvertently becomes the thing about which he complains most regarding Southerners: an ignorant, recalcitrant know-it-all.

[Bruce Reiter · Rating 2 out of 5]

I appreciated the collected information and have a better feeling or understanding of the southern culture from reading the book. The author's style did not appeal to me. As a resident of the mythic Cascadia I felt a lot of the book was "Southern Bashing", reaffirming my Northwestern liberal prejudices. I do not care much for southern culture, having lived in it for several years with the Army. Best quote for me was from Dr. Cobb,"My objection to what you're doing is using the South to wink at all the stuff in the rest of the country that needs addressing."

[Connie · Rating 5 out of 5]

I started reading this book in November, before the election. I finished it a couple of weeks after Pres. Obama was reelected.

Over the years, there has always been talk coming from Texas and Alaska (specifically) about "seceding" from the United States.

Considering all the hate, discontent, and vitriolic that has been emanating from the southern states during Pres. Obama's first term, it is no surprise that author Chuck Thompson chose to research and write this book.

By the way, the book was published long before the recent post-election brouhaha where many of the citizens of southern states were frantically submitting petitions to the White House – – petitions to secede. Chuck seems to have anticipated their action – – he was months ahead of them!

Author Thompson spent quite a bit of time in the southern states over a period of two years, while researching this book. Because of the close associations that he formed during his travels and research period, he has a good grasp of the South and the people in various southern states – – their attitudes, their religion, their politics, their education level, etc.

He makes a very good argument for secession – – and he keeps the reader laughing all the while. He is a wonderful writer, the book is a fast read, but very informative and educational.

[Paul Pessolano · Rating 3 out of 5]

“Better Off Without “Em” by Chuck Thompson, published by Simon and Schuster.

Category – Politics/History

This book is controversial, opinionated, and, humorous but serious in some respects. You will love the book if you are a Northerner, Obama backer, Liberal, and a Democrat. You will hate it if you are a Southerner, Anti-Obama, Conservative, and a Republican. Either way I recommend the book.

Chuck Thompson puts forth the proposal that the USA, would be better off if the Southern States would secede. We would then have the Northern States as the USA, and the Southern States as the CSA. He feels that the Southern States are dragging down the Northern States and would be better off without them.

He cites many different reasons for his belief including money, politics, religion, football (yes, football), and education. He does a nice job of combining his philosophy with humor; unfortunately the humor is all slanted towards the South.

A very interesting read, regardless of your affiliation, that will certainly have you putting on your thinking cap. The reader must keep in mind that this book is written strictly from one side of the argument, and some facts will be skewed toward the Northern side of the argument.

[Barton Hacker · Rating 2 out of 5]

Very biased from the outset, without any real conviction to develop a critical counter argument to his premise that the South is simply an uneducated, racist group of neanderthals set to destroy the country. That's not to say that there weren't any good points made... there were many. They were simply hard to take seriously amid the theatrical manner in which he went about communicating these points. I was reminded of both Bill Mahr and Rush Limbaugh in that regard. And after a while, who wants to wade through that much s*** to find an interesting morsel on which to critically examine?

So was it entertaining? Sure. But in a simple, narrow-minded kind of way.

[Brandon Hickey · Rating 3 out of 5]

While an entertaining read for any northern liberal, the author's argument completely collapses the moment that an intelligent southern historian asks some fairly obvious pointed questions. The author's proposed succession plan would leave Texas as a northern state, simply because it is "too valuable to lose." To even think that Texas would consider remaining as part of a northern USA while its ideological brethren are allowed to create their own union is laughable. Texas would never accept the terms outlined in the proposal. Ultimately, all it took to deflate the entire book is a barroom debate with a few actually educated Southerners.

[Lisa · Rating 3 out of 5]

Chuck Thompson's premise is that the South and the rest of the United States are so philosophically and culturally different that it makes us compromising impossible. All concerned would be better off if we simply let them secede. He provides many facts and examples to support his premise, many amusing and others redundant. Only at the very end does he contradict what he has been saying throughout the rest of the book. I thought that this was somewhat disconcerting. Nevertheless, I think he provides us with an interesting idea to think about. Read the book and see what you think. You be the judge.

[Cenk Gokce · Rating 2 out of 5]

Well, lots of bias, although I went in expecting that so it didn't really surprise me. What surprised me was the curious exclusion of TEXAS from the South--with a lame excuse that "the North can't afford to lose Texas"
I'm sorry, Texas is, and has always been an integral part of the South, and a renewed CSA would not be complete without Texas--in fact, I'd think Houston or Dallas might serve as the capital of the new CSA, rather than Atlanta. Interesting information even though I am not sold on the separation argument on the basis of what's presented.

[Chris Brown · Rating 2 out of 5]

Somewhat clever but it's too easy to mock evolution-denying southern evangelical Christians who believe Obama is either the anti-Christ or, if you are a moderate, just a Kenyan Muslim. Quick read and kind of a guilty pleasure but I kept feeling, so what? It just confirmed my stereotypes of uneducated, religious southerners. I'd rather read a book about the changing southern demographics about the south, something that would challenge rather than bolster my worst assumptions.

[Ailith Twinning · Rating 4 out of 5]

TL;DR - Funny book, dude totally fails to understand, in immortal words "The Entire United States is Southern!". Segregation, racism, religious nuts, poverty, sickness, violence, Republicans - all the evils of this country exist in the whole of this country - Southerners are just slightly more open about it, even if they honestly don't understand that thinking blacks are worse than whites is racist, because they think it's true (another quote "It ain't racist if it's true" - anyone's Aunt, anywhere in America). Secession won't do a damn thing about it.



My rambling response to the book until I felt I'd wasted enough time writing about it below:


It's basically a joke until the very end when he has a conversation with academics. It's funny, it's painful, it's true.

Once you start taking it seriously, the biggest problem I see is the question "Will the USA, without the South, become more like it was under FDR?" A big part of that question is "Will Texas still be in the Union?" Because, if so, then no, absolutely not. And if not, the North would be just as fucked as the South, because it'd have to start doing the same thing it is already doing in Appalachia in Wyoming, Montana, Idaho - just create a new underclass to build the folks on. It's not just about tax dollars, it's about feeding the oligarchs - Free Trade means feeding the oligarchs, and Silicon Valley ain't gonna be enough, especially not as China and the South (as well as Japan, Korea, Ireland, the UK, Iceland, India, and a few others) are both getting better at high-tech stuff, and getting better at following American IP imperialist methodology.

You absolutely can't split the Union and keep Texas in the North - it'd destroy the North, politically, economically, racially and environmentally.

The religious contentions are going to be a problem no matter what, you can't excise Evangelicals, Zionists and hardline Catholics outright - they're everywhere. But, you can make them a minority, and excise the most powerful and corrupt political players in the first two - the Catholics not so much, but they're less dangerous, especially without their coalition. Yet, a problem isn't necessarily a Problem, if you get me. Some conflict is fine, healthy even, and making the extreme religious elements a stark minority is probably all that's needed. For all the racist fearmongering, Islam is not a threat to Europe, and won't be, there's not enough political fundamentalists in the mix for one, but, more to the point, it's simply not possible for those that do exist to whip up anything like the political power necessary to screw up secular society. Imagine multiplying that by twenty times and it's still not a threat, and you have something like the fundamentalism outside the South in the States.

But, here's the scary thought - Are there enough Libertarians (read: Anarcho Capitalists and Anarcho Fascists) outside the South to pose a threat to the Union if it's on it's own? Does removing the Fundamentalist bent of the Republican party make it more dangerous, less, or just about the same? Do the Mid-Western states gain so much influence in the new allocation of Representatives and Electoral College votes that we keep much of the self-destructive politics, only jettisoning the most extreme 'normals' of racism and fundamentalism? Do the oligarchs find new political pressure points for these rural states, or old ones the rest of us don't know about anyway, and again maintain a balance much like what we already have, or even gain more traction in the turn of America into Gross' Friendly Fascism?

The South may be the ideological forbear of Nazism. But the North is the ideological forbear of Italian Fascism, and offspring of Dickensian horror. By giving up one monster, do we only allow the other to grow faster?

It's hardly worth talking about what happens to the South itself. I becomes what it always was, but moreso. Yeoman return in full force in new ways, contractual labor is now short-leased slavery with the last vestiges of Federal protection removed, the prison population balloons as well as prison forced labor, which will no longer be payed at all, and may return to flatly working people to death and/or leasing convicts out rather than paying a prison to house them, at the religious level it will be a Christian version of Israel, and will likely treat border Mexico much as Israel does Palestine - it might even invade in a decade or two, seeking slaves, land, resources, and converts. It would be hellish. And yet, as easily tolerable and tolerated as Israel, South Africa under Apartheid, Nazi Germany (before it invaded Poland and crossed the line), the former British or French, or frankly any other European Empire - or indeed the US itself.

And, if you think kicking out the south means racial equality in the Union. You're wrong. Segregation is plenty bad up there, charter schools are moving forward, taxes are shifting more and more towards the poor, Besos has his own Yeoman army, and much else besides. The South isn't the whole of the problem, it's just the most visible, unrepentant part. You wanna see some real racism? Try white folks in the Chicago suburbs. They don't need Klansman outfits - they don't need the word nigger, they've got 'criminal' and 'ghetto' and (when they're feeling charitable) the 'underpriveleged' to talk about, and we all know what they're really saying. As a Southerner, I know the Southern Strategy when I hear it.

And just for fun, this Southerner is a LGBTQ, atheist, socialist - who hates Silicon Valley and Pelosi as much as Exxon and Perry.

All that said - secession is fine by me really. The road we're on right now is so dark and horrific I'll take it, so long as I get citizenship in the Union and move my ass to Colorado or Oregon - Wyoming or Montana if there's some kind of jobs program.

[Patrick · Rating 3 out of 5]

I came across this book at an earlier point but considered it not to be that interesting and more of a "The South is bad, let's get rid off it" book. The book crossed my mind thinking about other majorities wanting to secede from a minority (f.e. Flanders-Wallonia).

The book doesn't touch the question if the South wants to secede. Which would be unusual if the South were to be less wealthy than the North. Poorer parts of the country are not likely to want to secede.

The issue of having different social values remind me more of the East-West divide within the European Union which is for a part solved by no EU jurisdiction over issues of marriage, prostitution or abortion. Same could have been done within the USA making those issues state's rights issues. Also the low wage dumping within the USA is a problem within the European Union, one which hasn't been solved by the EU.

[Kevin Keith · Rating 3 out of 5]

Better Off Without 'Em: A Northern Manifesto for Southern Secession, by Chuck Thompson, is an engaging and provocative examination of US North/South tensions through the conceit of Thompson's semi-serious proposition that the South ought to be allowed to secede after all, because the North would be "better off without 'em".

To explore this suggestion, Thompson takes off on a road trip through the Confederacy and nearby areas, confronting Southerners of various descriptions and finally convoking a round-table of Southern writers, scholars, and a young student to debate his proposition and consider its consequences. In fact, the framing question largely serves as an opportunity to riff on North/South differences in culture, economic strength, labor rights and living conditions, and, crucially, college football. Removing part of the South from the US (he wavers on exactly what would define "the South" for purposes of making the division) would have consequences in all these areas, in some cases relieving tax burdens on the North, in other cases depriving it of important resources. Pursuing these various issues gives Thompson a chance to review North/South history and make comparative surveys of the ways they are similar, divided, and interrelated today.

Thompson never fully endorses his own proposition, and acknowledges that sundering the nation would be impossible in a practical sense anyway. He is mostly motivated by the frustration many Yankees feel at the continued backwardness of the South in so many areas of civil and human rights, labor conditions, environmentalism, and other more or less progressive causes. But he seems surprised that almost none of the people he talks to in his investigation are willing to take him up on his offer. Even the most informed and virulent critic of Southern racial history points out how dependent North and South are on one another economically, militarily, and by ties of personal connection. The Yankee-haters he meets mostly share the same sensibility - that we are stuck with one another whether we like it or not.

Because the central theme of the book is not meant seriously, and because Thompson proposes it as a hypothetical, not a proposition he is willing to argue for at length, the book has a kind of superficial feeling to it. Thompson covers a lot of ground, and offers on-point statistics to bolster his comparative reviews, but each chapter is a kind of introductory-level skim of deep and contentious issues. Because Thompson backs off so willingly from his own premise, the book doesn't seem to be making any important point. Nonetheless, it is an entertaining and informative read, and injects a light-hearted tone into a perennially contentious conflict.

Better Off Without 'Em is recommended as an interesting diversion for those with a sincere focus on US cultural, and particularly North/South, issues, and as an easy introduction to such issues for others not willing to make a deep scholarly commitment. It fails as a serious contribution to Southern or US cultural studies, but would still provide an interesting point of reference for those relying on more scholarly materials.

[Joyce · Rating 5 out of 5]

I gather that Chuck Thompson is a travel writer, and he's written a book about his travels in the southern US with a distinct political bias, that the south, with it's history of resistance and hyper-religiosity, is holding the country back. They seem to be mired in grievances over their loss of the American Civil War and thus all their political power is directed against the US government. They seem to think they should have been allowed to secede, and he agrees with them.
He lists the Seven Deadly Sins of Southern Gub'mit and how they negatively affect the US.
1. Demagogic Dishonesty. The Southern political playbook hasn't changed from 1860 to 2012 with their reaction to any new proposal by the government being negative.
2. Religious Fanaticism. Those who hold that God's law is immutable arrive in the nation's capital armed not with the diplomat's skills of persuasion and compromise, but with the fanatics conviction that negotiation with infidels equals sin. No way to run a government.
3. Willful Obstruction. Relates to above: the reason the United States was able to turn totalitarian enemies into friendly allies with such ease in postwar Germany and Japan - in a way it was never able to do after vanquishing the South in the Civil War - is that the lack of powerful religious institutions in those countries enabled the rise of cooperative, logic-driven governments ... In other words, they were able to find common points of interest and behave as rational actors in mutually beneficial social and economic arrangements. They were able to compromise.
4.Disregard for Own Self Interest. Why is it that, as southerners are quick to tell you, almost none of the poor bastards who got bayoneted for slavery in the Civil War actually owned any slaves or land themselves? Why in continually supplicating himself to political and commercial interests demonstrably hostile to his own, does the southern voter so fluently assume the role of the battered woman in an abuse relationship...? No answer, it's just in their blood.
5. Corporate Supplication. Neither intellectual nor populist, the modern political South is more accurately described as a captive tool of corporate ideology ... an unwavering drive to confirm the conviction that the industrialization of the South is not only sacred, but attainable only through cheap labor and laws that maintain a perpetually impoverished lower class from which to draw it. Before the country started outsourcing jobs overseas, they outsourced to the South, because the workingman there is non union, non benefited, and desperate for work.
6. Disproportionate Influence. Thanks to its outsized influence in the federal government, Americans from Hilo to Huntsville are now hostage to the South's martyr=infused dysfunction. The "Solid South" is a term that for most of post-Reconstruction history has been used to describe the single-party system under which all southern politics operated. Voting as a block has enormous influence.
7. Military Adventurism. The southerner/s enthrallment with war and bloodshed, his veneration of defeat and disaster, his zeal for religious crusade, and easy compliance with the corporate profit motive, has repeatedly dragged the nation into unnecessary wars.

He puts for a good case for secession, and I'm more than willing to stand here waving good bye.

[Nathaniel · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is another book in the overly-glutted "Self-obsessed white guy writing a book about what they think of the world" category, sort of along the lines of Eric Schlosser. The only thing that keeps me from hating Thompson's writing as much as I hate Schlosser’s is the fact that Thompson doesn't take himself too seriously and obviously doesn't consider himself to be the Ultimate Authority on the subject that he writes about. He knows he has biases, knows exactly what they are, and is obviously having fun with it. Though he's ultimately on the same high horse as anyone else who writes in this category, Thompson at least tries to be objective, even when he's trying to pretend he isn't trying to be objective....which he does. And he's incredibly unpretentious about his own shortcomings; at the end of the book, he even goes as far as to assemble a committee of "Southern Expert" professors (most notably, this guy) and Southern undergrads from the University of Georgia together at Applebee's, explains his secession theory, and lets them all totally rip it to shreds. The rest is wandering around the South reporting on various cultural aspects (religion, politics, culture generally). These all have their shortcomings, being from the convenience-sample "man on the street" school of writing, but he does it in a way that comes off as much more honest than the Moore/Schlosser route because, crucially, he's willing to talk to people who may disagree with him. He even goes into a redneck bar at one point, which shows a level of backbone and intellectual curiosity that most who write this type of book just don't have. Ironically (because it's the chapter that he explicitly says is included as a joke), the most convincing of these chapters is the one on what's wrong with Southern college football, because it's the subject the author knows the most about...but the rest is still interesting, and surprisingly well-sourced for a book of this type.

With that said, this is still a flawed book. In particular, there's the issue of the awkward hyperbole that seems to be the main reason why the holier-than-thous in other reviews on this site seem to utterly loathe this book. Thompson really seems to be trying too hard to be funny in an inappropriate place, and most of the time just comes off as crass. It's not that he's condescending so much as that he's pretending to be a lot more condescending than he actually is in a way that just kind of comes off as stupid. It's also valid to suggest that this isn't a conversation we as a nation should be having at all - especially since it's pretty clear that the South isn't going anywhere...and the author acknowledges as much early on. (So you could really question whether this book ultimately serves a purpose). However, Thompson makes enough good observations about Southern character - particularly the "it's not as bad now as people say it is" cognitive dissonance re: racism and other social ills, that as someone interested in American studies this book is staying on my shelf. It's not scientific and is hardly brilliant, but it still mostly has my respect because, unlike the likes of Fast Food Nation (and many of this book's detractors on Goodreads), it doesn't pretend to be either of those things.

[Christopher Roth · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book has been taken to task for its snarkiness and mean-spiritedness, but a bit unfairly, I think. Yes, Thompson uses very incendiary, often hilarious, language to make his point. For example --

-- "It's not easy to look into the twinkling eyes of a seventy-seven-year-old grandmother--a short woman in a pink T-shirt and floppy, white beach hat, the maker of someone's favorite sweet potato pie, a woman who says 'God bless you with an extra dose of sugar'--and tell her that a life spent in the dim-bulb, backwater dumbfuckery of the smallest town in Alabama has so warped her political perspective that she and the rest of the citizens of Winston County deserve nothing less than a fast and merciless banishment to the same tar pits of political history occupied by Stephen Douglas, George Wallace, Uncle Remus, and Herman Cain." --

-- but let's be clear: Thompson doesn't claim that ALL Southerners are idiots, or even that all white Southerners are. He's merely saying that a sufficient share of them is that it distorts American politics to the point where it would be better for the rest of the country if the South split away. This is absolutely undeniable when one thinks about electorally, though Thompson doesn't address the problem of what would happen to anyone who is not a white heterosexual Christian in the cesspool of theocracy and discrimination that an independent South would rapidly become, nor at all the question of what a partition of the U.S. into a much more progressive and enlightened North and an economically lopsided, authoritarian Southern banana republic would do to world geopolitics. (Dangerous military adventurism would be reduced, and so on and so on, but do we really want the world's two superpowers to be Russia and China?? [[shudder]])

To his credit, Thompson doesn't simply rely on stereotypes; he gives us hard numbers. When you look at opinion polls on issues like interracial marriage in Alabama and Mississippi, for example, it is not being mean to say that the vast majority of white people in these states are vile, disgusting, ignorant bigots. That's just facts. Period. And he offers a useful analysis of the ingredients of Southern culture that create the problem, including religious fanaticism, political corruption, and idolatry of the military and corporations even when that means opposing one's own self-interest. I would add, more specifically, a culture that elevates "loyalty" and "honor" above rights and principles and checks and balances, in a way that--when one considers what the framers of the Constitution were defining themselves *against*--is deeply un-American.

So, on the whole, I agree with Thompson's gist: the South is dragging America down, and the costs of this are vast and incalculable, including for the whole world (will we ever be able to count the dead in Southeast Asia and Iraq?). But I just love too many of my dear friends who are members of the South's progressive, tolerant minority to be able to contemplate how terrible it would be if partition became a reality.

It should also be said that this one of the most laugh-out-loud funny books I've read in a long time.

[Kristen · Rating 3 out of 5]

This might be one of the most out there "non-fiction" books I've ever read. Yes, non-fiction is in quotes on purpose. I think it's safe to say the amount of editorializing and extreme hyperbole puts this book in the same category as "reality" TV. However, that doesn't mean I didn't really enjoy reading some parts of it. Thompson's writing reminds me of some of the most interesting and most highly annoying people I knew in college. People that loved to debate and were always saying crazy stuff just to shock and outrage everyone at the table because they knew they could dance verbal and rhetorical circles around anyone who tried to challenge them. I would stick around for these death matches for pure entertainment value. But sometimes I just wasn't in the mood for their crap. Sometimes I wanted to just say "dude, shut up!!!!" Much of this book was interesting, a bit informative if I could wade through the mire, and I laughed quite a bit. But I'd be lying if I didn't say I rolled my eyes just as much, and wanted to shout at my book "shut up!!!"

Style set aside, there were some really shocking facts in this book regarding recent racist events and crimes as recent as 2006-2011. Being raised in the very liberal and culturally diverse Southern California, this kind of overt hate in action just boggles my mind. The deplorable state of public education as described in this book was also of interest to me since I now live in Memphis and have a little one to think about. There was an entire chapter devoted to football that, to be honest, after a few pages of jargon that meant nothing to me, I decided to skip. He practically called it an intermission, so I figured I wasn't missing too much.

While Thompson's style of characterizing the South seemed pretty reductive even to a mostly clueless west-coaster like myself, he made an interesting point at the end. While not every Southerner fits every negative stereotype or even statistic, "the majority of southerners are, and have always been...willing to allow the most strident, mouth-breathing 'patriotic' firebrands among them to remain in control of their society's most powerful and influential positions. This is true whether they operate in the realms of religion, politics, business, education, or just basic day-to-day civic operations, like the hamlet nabobs in Laurens, South Carolina, who, knowing it's wrong, still grant a business license to a guy who sells Klan shit from a shop in front of their picturesque little courthouse."
Boom.

[Patty · Rating 2 out of 5]

Although I did not finish this book, I am going to review what I perceive as the author's intentions. He feels that the Northern and Western parts of the United States would be better off if the South (where I happen to live) would secede.

In some respects, Thompson is correct. Many of the more conservative people live in the South. Also, lots of the fundamentalist Christians also live in my part of the country. However, there are many liberal folks around here, just as there are many conservatives in Thompson's part of the country. So I am not sure that having the South secede would solve many problems.

Since I believe that much of what Thompson has to say is tongue in cheek, I am not bothered by his proposition. It is one possible solution. Thompson makes his point and I enjoyed the opportunity to look at our political issues from another perspective. I am not convinced secession would help anyone, but I don't have to agree with everything an author says.

However, I got bored. I believe that this book would have made a better article. Once Thompson felt obligated to repeat his theory using football, I had enough. He had convinced me that there were merits to his ideas and that he can write amusing anecdotes. After that he relied to heavily on repetition.

As a Northerner, who has been transplanted to Virginia for 30 years, my theory is that more folks should move down here and dilute the more conservative beliefs of some native Southerners. The only problem with this and with Thompson's own theory, is that there are plenty of conservative thinkers in the North too.

I am not sorry I read part of this book, but I can't imagine to whom I would inflict this whole book. It was just too long for me.

[Amy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Better Off Without 'Em is not, I think, a nonfiction book meant to be taken seriously. I picked this up on a whim while browsing under the impression that it was - at best - a food-for-thought kind of book and was - more likely - moderately amusing infotainment. In the infotainment respect, I think it succeeded. Yes, the book is laid out and written in a tone more like a face-to-face conversation or a blog post, and yes, that probably will grate on the nerves on some readers. It does, however, improve the book's overall readability  (I spent a good portion of my reading time laughing at the snark and the sarcasm that the author liberally uses), even some of the jokes toe or cross the line.

Plus, mixed in with the snark, sarcasm, and somewhat questionable humor, there are a number of excellent points made in Better Off Without 'Em. There are massive cultural and ideological differences between most of the northern states and most of the southern states, and this translates the massive differences in approaches to education, economics, and healthcare, among other things. Even if you think the theme of secession is inappropriate, the author's approach is in bad taste, or that the open advocation of secession is deliberately divisive, the fact remains that we live in an America with fundamentally incompatible views of such things as citizenship, government, and societal construction. Better Off Without 'Em is definitely more infotainment than anything else, but it at least left me with amusing reading experience, things to think about, and notes about topics that I want to find more in-depth books on.

[Scott Lupo · Rating 4 out of 5]

Mmm...how to describe this book. Do you like biting humor? Do you like it when an author uses his/her amazing wordsmith skills to produce sarcasm mixed with truth rants? Because, wow, there are some doozies in this book. There are some rants I had to reread several times after laughing out loud. Thompson has a colorful way of getting his point across to the reader. Now, if you are right leaning, conservative, evangelical, or come from the South you may not like this book (unless you have a really good sense of humor). While Thompson doesn't full out blast the South with his pointed and critical writing it is also NOT an apology for the South. Just as much as he makes a case for the North he also makes the case for the South. It's a mutual secession thing. He touches on all the pertinent subject matters: religion, race, politics, fried foods. He even has a half-time show dedicated to college football thrown in the middle. Quite honestly, I've read Malkin, Hannity, Limbaugh, et.al. Their books are so full of animosity and ad hominem attacks that it's hard to get through them, especially if you're a fact/statistic person (because they rarely use them). Thompson is using tongue and cheek but supplies facts and figures. Not that the conclusion is necessarily correct but it does leave you wondering.

[Fr. Andrew · Rating 3 out of 5]

Well-researched, yet feels very incomplete. I enjoyed the read, and learned a lot, and was convinced by his central premise, that the north and south are pretty much dragging each other down due to complete incompatibility problems. I live in New Mexico, which for some reason gets zero credit from Thompson for being a pretty non-southern state (in terms of the qualities he describes as being problematically southern) in spite of being on the border.

Unconvincing: the north keeping Texas.

Unnecessary: the entire chapter about the SEC. I skimmed it and found it disposable, though perhaps independently interesting to someone who's a college football fan (God knows why anybody would be).

Disappointing: Chapter 6, which rushed through the treaties and solutions to problematic aspects of cutting the U.S. into two separate countries. This should have been the second full half of the book.

More disappointing: Thompson's extremely over-the-top attack on overweight people using some of the foulest descriptions I've ever read.

Conclusion: Lots of work went into this book, and it's a fun(ny) read that never reaches its full potential. Worth reading but not definitive, not even close.

[Zak Patten · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thompson writes a lot like Rolling Stone's resident lefty bomb-hurler Matt Taibbi. His opinions are front-and-center yet he backs them up with a wealth of fascinating facts. His outrageous and oft-profane humor skewers the objects of his critique, which provides much delight to those of us on his side, but also ample ammunition with which his opponents may easily dismiss him. I was ultimately convinced by "Better Off Without 'Em" that we Americans are hopelessly divided between North and South, but I went into my reading of the book with more or less that opinion. Where I much less persuaded by Thompson's argument was in its feasibility. Though he proposes some creative solutions for a shared military, locked-in purchases of Southern energy, and 10 years of open borders for those more drawn to the life on either side of the (new) Mason-Dixon line, ultimately the challenges of a national divorce seem insurmountable. Who gets to keep Texas's trillion-dollar economy? What about all those red states (Utah, Idaho, Montana, Indiana, the Dakotas, and Wyoming) trapped behind the Iron Curtain of liberalism? All kidding aside, I'm afraid the U.S. and the Confederacy are stuck together in a loveless marriage and it's a permanent arrangement.

[Public Scott · Rating 2 out of 5]

A fairly amusing liberal's fantasy - what would happen if we could just ditch Dixie? As it happens, this reader was also watching Ken Burns's Civil War series whilst reading this book. Viewed through that spectrum, the bloodshed and misery of the war to preserve the union, it seems especially frivolous to imagine just casting that same part of our nation off for spite.

Further, the chapter on college football (I understand this is all tongue-in-cheek mind you) seems especially spurious. How does unfairness in the college football rankings bolster the case for allowing the South to secede? Well, the author tells us why for better or worse.

Still, there were some amusing and educational moments along the way - the chapters on religion and education were especially enlightening. Chuck Thompson is a bomb thrower - tread lightly if you're easily offended!

[Kevin Trudo · Rating 3 out of 5]

Well written and funny. It fails as satire, largely, as its makes no pretense of objectivity. In fact it's a ferociously first person work with no attempt to appear academic. it's a fun read, but the single note wears and the indictments in the author's voice parrot some of the hate and surface skimming politics he attempt to shish-ka-bob, leaving an unsatisfying empty belly to accompany the questionable aftertaste.

[Kevin · Rating 4 out of 5]

If only we could do this.