So I'm reading William C. Davis's The Cause Lost, and it's kind of coming off as lost causeish with him repeatedly saying how confederate leadership couldn't bury personal rivalries for the good of the "cause", and it comes off in a way like he wishes they had. He also praises James I. Robertson, who Alan T. Nolan outright calls a Neo-Condederate in his essay on the lost cause "Anatomy of the Myth". Are these two modern lost causers and thus should be avoided or are they good historians to turn to when reading about the civil war? By the way here is the quote by Alan T. Nolan that I mentioned, the context being him discussing the romanticism of Confederate leaders, in this case Jackson: "The neo-Confederate writers of the lost cause in this century- people like James I. Robertson Jr.- are, if anything, more elaborate in their tributes to Jackson than were his early biographers. Robertson's 1997 biography describes Jackson as a "spiritual prince," "standing alone on a high pedestal," and he says that Jackson's devotion to God, duty, and country "remain treasured legacies of the American people just as they are inspirations to people everywhere.'".
Robertson I would say is very well regarded. He is essentially the best living historian in particular on Stonewall Jackson and the Shenandoah Valley during the war. In his youth and many of his earlier books he was in instances particularly scathing of his conduct and performance as a general, though that softened to a degree with age. And he only recently retired from teaching at Virginia Tech, and I unfortunately was never able to get into any of his classes while an undergrad.
He was also named the chairman of the federal U.S. Civil War Centennial Commission by JFK back in 1961.
I would say he may be a very Southern focused historian but he does not espouse any sort of apologism or doctrine like that. Though he was the chief consultant for the film Gods and Generals which does er quite a bit towards veneration of the Cause, but as with any film how often do they actually listen to the people they bring in as experts, we will likely never know.