Better Off Without 'em

Secession is not exactly a suitable cocktail party conversation starter anywhere in the country, but take that notion deep into the heart of Dixie and you might find yourself running from the possum-hunting conservatives, trailer-park lifers, and prayer warriors Chuck Thompson encountered during the two years he spent traveling the American South asking the question: Would we be better off without ’em?

By crunching numbers, interviewing experts, and roaming the not-so-former Confederacy, Thompson—an openly disgruntled liberal from the Northwest—makes a compelling case for southern secession. The result is a heavily researched, serious inquiry into national divides that is unabashedly controversial, often uproarious, and always thought provoking. What would our new nations look like if Virginia governor Bob McDonnell was elected as the first President of the Confederate States of America? If the BCS championship football game were replaced by a North vs. South Coca Cola/ Starbucks Blood Bowl™? If Florida went to the South and Texas to the North in the most complex land-and-population grab in American history?

Better Off Without ’Em is a deliberately provocative book that won equal parts friends and enemies upon its hardcover publication. Says Eric Weiner, New York Times bestselling author of The Geography of Bliss, “Fry yourself some grits, unfurl that Confederate flag, and read this gem of a book. Chuck Thompson doesn’t have a politically correct bone in his Yankee body.”

Secession is not exactly a suitable cocktail party conversation starter anywhere in the country, but take that notion deep into the heart of Dixie and you might find yourself running from the possum-hunting conservatives, trailer-park lifers, and prayer warriors Chuck Thompson encountered during the two years he spent traveling the American South asking the question: Would we be better off without ’em?

By crunching numbers, interviewing experts, and roaming the not-so-former Confederacy, Thompson—an openly disgruntled liberal from the Northwest—makes a compelling case for southern secession. The result is a heavily researched, serious inquiry into national divides that is unabashedly controversial, often uproarious, and always thought provoking. What would our new nations look like if Virginia governor Bob McDonnell was elected as the first President of the Confederate States of America? If the BCS championship football game were replaced by a North vs. South Coca Cola/ Starbucks Blood Bowl™? If Florida went to the South and Texas to the North in the most complex land-and-population grab in American history?

Better Off Without ’Em is a deliberately provocative book that won equal parts friends and enemies upon its hardcover publication. Says Eric Weiner, New York Times bestselling author of The Geography of Bliss, “Fry yourself some grits, unfurl that Confederate flag, and read this gem of a book. Chuck Thompson doesn’t have a politically correct bone in his Yankee body.”