Better Off Without ’Em
A Northern Manifesto for Southern Secession
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.
In Better Off Without ’Em, 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—actually 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 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, fearless politics, and sheer nerve will spark a long overdue debate.
