Bøger i Florida History and Culture serien

At any time of year. Jeff Klinkenberg can find a place in Florida that's ripe to enjoy or a person whose story has aged to perfection. Preserving the past, his essays reveal his waggish appreciation of Florida's history, folkways, and landscape, not to mention its ribs, smoked mullet, stone crab claws, and fresh lemonade.

This book tells the story of how NASA transformed Florida's East Coast from an economy based on agriculture and tourism to one of the nation's most influential centers of technology.

One of Library Journal's Best Books of 2006 Winner, Bronze Medal, Florida Book Awards Winner, Al Burt Award"Bill Belleville writes gorgeously and straight from the heart. This is a compelling and insightful book, and it's impossible to read it without feeling sadness, outrage and awe."--Carl Hiaasen"Bill Belleville writes about the old Florida, the real Florida, like a poet or maybe a preacherman--certainly a prophet. He's up there with Marjorie Stoneman Douglas and William Bartram, a chronicler of the green and blue glories of the palmetto scrub, the springs and the woods. Best of all, he's righteously angry about how the place Bartram called "a glorious apartment in the sovereign palace of the Creator" is being wrecked in the name of "progress." But as long as Belleville keeps turning out exquisite, moving and beautiful books like this, there may just be hope." --Diane Roberts, author of Dream State: Eight Generations Of Swamp Lawyers, Conquistadors, Confederate Daughters, Banana Republicans And Other Florida Wildlife"An eloquent and bittersweet goodbye to Florida."--Jeff Klinkenberg, author of Seasons of Real Florida"A work soaked in the shadow of change. . . . An important book in the personal history of a fast-changing state."--John Lane, author of Waist Deep in Black WaterLosing It All to Sprawl is the poignant chronicle of award-winning nature writer Bill Belleville and how he came to understand and love his historic Cracker farmhouse and "relic" neighborhood in central Florida, even as it was all wiped out from under him. Belleville's narrative is eloquent, informed, and impassioned, a saga in which tractors and backhoes trample through the woods next to his home in order to build the backbone of Florida sprawl--the mall.As heavy machinery encircles Belleville and his community--the noise growing louder and closer, displacing everything Belleville has called home for the past fifteen years--he tells a story that is much older, 10,000 years older. The story stretches back to the Timucua and the Mayaca living in harmony with Florida's environment; the conquistadors who expected much from, but also feared, this "land of flowers"; the turn-of-the-century tourists "modernizing" and "climatizing" the state; the original Cracker families who lived in Belleville's farmhouse. In stark contrast to this millennia-long transformation is the whiplash of unbridled growth and development that threatens the nearby wilderness of the Wekiva River system, consuming Belleville's home and, ultimately, his very sense of place.In Florida, one of the nation's fastest growing states (and where local and state governments encourage growth), balancing use with preservation is an uphill battle. Sprawl spreads into the countryside, consuming not just natural lands but Old Florida neighborhoods and their unique history. In Losing It All to Sprawl, Belleville accounts for the impacts--social, political, natural, personal--that a community in the crosshairs of unsustainable growth ultimately must bear, but he also offers Floridians, and anyone facing the blight of urban confusion, the hope that can be found in the rediscovery and appreciation of the natural landscape.

This is the definitive biography of a famous developer and fascinating entrepreneur. Born in Indiana, Carl Fisher helped build the Indianapolis Motor Speedway and headed promotion for the Indy 500. But these feats were only prologue to his grandest adventure, as primary developer and promoter of Miami Beach.

The first book devoted to the history of African Americans in south Florida and their pivotal role in the growth and development of Miami, Black Miami in the Twentieth Century traces their triumphs, drudgery, horrors, and courage during the first 100 years of the city's history. Firsthand accounts and over 130 photographs bring to life the proud heritage of Miami's black community.

"Key West is an island steeped in lore, from Hemingway to Fantasy Fest, but behind the façade of Margaritaville lie buried tensions and conflicts in need of examination. Kerstein provides a much-needed dose of reality in the form of a masterfully researched study of the island's tourism industry, from the shadowy power brokers who pull the strings to the underpaid workers who serve the drinks. From seedy bars to trendy discos, Kerstein has managed to capture the improbable mixture of this strange island, while offering a cautionary tale of tourism run amok."--Robert Lee Irby, author of 7,000 Clams "An exemplary study and a cautionary tale that should be read by everyone interested in the suicidal course of a society driven by an irrational and self-destructive compulsion to erase differences in the pursuit of the almighty dollar."--Brewster Chamberlin, author of Mario Sanchez: Once Upon a Way of Life "Refreshingly accurate account of how Key West invented the Conch Republic tourist economy from the ruins of the closed military complex. Highly recommended."--Tom Hambright, Monroe County Historian "For anyone who has visited Key West or hopes to do so one day, Bob Kerstein provides a splendid history of the larger-than-life people and powerful social forces that shaped this unique American city into what it is today. He chronicles the decades-long struggle and mixed success of Key West's efforts to avoid the homogenization that seems inevitably to accompany large-scale tourism."--Scott Keeter, Pew Research Center "Bob Kerstein's urban history of the 'Conch Republic' charts the evolution of Key West's quirky, nonconformist charm but also teases out long-running conflicts between its embrace of tourism and defense of authenticity. Alongside fascinating chronicles of the characters and capers that have made this city unique, Key West on the Edge presents a sobering consideration of the ways larger economic forces create tensions between the global and local, modernity and heritage, the power of the market and the power of place."--Rosemary Jann, George Mason University

The story of Frank and Ivy Stranahan, two individuals who shaped the development of one of Florida's major urban centers.

In the 1970s, justices on the Florida Supreme Court were popularly elected. But a number of scandals threatened to topple the court until public outrage led to profound reforms and fundamental changes in the way justices were seated.One justice abruptly retired after being filmed on a high-roller junket to Las Vegas. Two others tried to fix cases in lower courts on behalf of campaign supporters. A fourth destroyed evidence by shredding his copy of a document into "e;seventeen equal"e; strips of paper that he then flushed down a toilet.As the journalist who wrote most of the stories that exposed these events, Martin Dyckman played a key role in revealing the corruption, favoritism, and cronyism then rampant in the court.A Most Disorderly Court recounts this dark period in Florida politics, when stunning revelations regularly came to light. He also traces the reform efforts that ultimately led to a constitutional amendment providing for the appointment of all Florida's appellate judges, and emphasizes the absolute importance of confidential sources for journalists.

Six years after his election as a segregationist, Florida governor LeRoy Collins denounced racial discrimination as contrary to "e;moral, simple justice."e; In 1991, the Florida House of Representatives eulogized Collins as the "e;Floridian of the Twentieth Century,"e; and today Collins is remembered as one of Florida's outstanding governors. As champion against rural misrule in 1954 and as the voice of racial moderation in 1956, Collins won the two most important gubernatorial elections in Florida history. In Floridian of His Century, a political portrait of this controversial Southern governor, Martin Dyckman argues that Collins's courageous moral leadership spared Florida the humiliation that befell other states under less enlightened leaders.

Florida Southern College in Lakeland boasts the largest single-site collection of Frank Lloyd Wright architecture in the world. With eleven buildings planned and designed by Wright, the campus forms a rich tableau for examining the architect's philosophy and design practice.In this fully illustrated volume, Dale Allen Gyure tells the engaging story of the ambitious project from beginning to end. The college's dynamic president, Ludd M. Spivey, wanted the grounds and buildings redesigned to embody a modern and distinctly American expression of Protestant theology. Informed by Spivey's vision, his own early educational experience, and his architectural philosophy, Wright conceived the "e;Child of the Sun"e; complex.Much like Thomas Jefferson's famous plan for the University of Virginia, the academic village that Wright designed for Florida Southern College expresses a dramatic and personal statement about education in a democratic society. Little studied to date, this significant campus and its history are finally given the attention they deserve in this fascinating volume.

Loveable or loathed? Poster child for conservation efforts or impediment to development? Nuisance or in need of protection? For the past two decades, the quiet manatee has been a flash point of frequent environmental debates.Included on the very first endangered species list issued in 1967, the docile creatures have stirred curiosity and passions for more than a hundred years. They are Florida's most famous endangered species, as well as its most controversial. Manatees appear on hundreds of license plates, attract hordes of tourists, and expose the uneasy relationships between science and the law and between freedom and responsibility like no other animal.As passions have flared and resentments have grown, the battle over manatee protection has evolved into a war, and no reporter has followed the story more closely than Craig Pittman. He's flown with scientists trying to count manatees from overhead. He's been on the water with the leader of the biggest pro-boater group. He's observed biologists dissecting the animals and politicians discussing their fate.Manatee Insanity provides the first in-depth history of the attempts to provide legal protection for the manatee. Along the way, Pittman takes a close look at the major and minor players in the dispute, from Jacques-Yves Cousteau to Jeb Bush, from Jimmy Buffett to O. J. Simpson, from a popular children's book author to a federal lawman who dressed in a gorilla suit for the ultimate undercover assignment.

After its Peruvian discovery in 2002, Phragmipedium kovachii became the rarest and most sought-after orchid in the world. Prices soared to $10,000 on the black market. Then one showed up at Marie Selby Botanical Gardens, where every year more than 100,000 people visit. They come for the lush landscape on Sarasota Bay and for Selby's vast orchid collection, one of the most magnificent in the world.The collision between Selby's scientists and the smugglers of Phrag. Kovachii, a rare ladyslipper orchid hailed as the most significant and beautiful new species discovered in a century, led to search warrants, a grand jury investigation, and criminal charges. It made headlines around the country, cost the gardens hundreds of thousands of dollars in donations, and led to tremendous internal turmoil.Investigative journalist Craig Pittman unravels this tangled web to shine a spotlight on flaws in the international treaties governing trade in endangered wildlife--which may protect individual plants and animals in shipping but do little to halt the destruction of whole colonies in the wild. The Scent of Scandal unspools like a riveting mystery novel, stranger than anything in Susan Orlean's The Orchid Thief or the film Adaptation. Pittman shows how some people can become so obsessed--with beauty, with profit, with fame--that they will ignore everything, even the law.

Florida possesses more wetlands than any other state except Alaska, yet since 1990 more than 84,000 acres have been lost to development despite presidential pledges to protect them. This book addresses how and why the state's wetlands are continuing to disappear.

Calling itself a "metaphysical mecca", the small town of Cassadaga, between Orlando and Daytona Beach in central Florida, was established more than a century ago on the principle of continuous life, the idea that spirits of the dead commune with the living. Though the founders of Cassadaga have passed on to the "spirit plane", the quaint Victorian town remains the oldest continuously active Spiritualist center in the South and was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1994. While the community has often been sensationalized and misrepresented, this is the first serious work to examine its history, people, cultural environment, and religious system.After presenting an overview of nineteenth-century religion, the book explores the town's early years, distinctive architecture, ritual life, core beliefs, healing work, and view of the future. It also probes the extent to which Cassadaga has assimilated New Age beliefs and other trends in contemporary American religious culture.The study includes a group biography based on interviews with four older residents, plus a chapter on the colorful life of Eloise Page, a practicing medium in Cassadaga for more than forty years. It also features 47 photographs that guide readers through the town and portray residents engaged in various sacred and everyday activities.

Like so many midwesterners since, Julia Daniels and Charles Scott Moseley moved to Florida in the 1880s seeking a warmer climate. This collection of Julia's letters reveals the struggle of a cultured, urban woman adjusting to the hardship and isolation of life in pioneer Florida.

A chronicle of the murder of Guy Bradley, which represented a milestone in the saga of the Everglades as well as in the broader history of American environmentalism. This biography of Bradley's life is emblematic of the struggle to tame the Florida frontier without destroying it.

In 'The Seminole Wars' the authors suggest that the issue of slavery, a culture of national arrogance and religious fervour fostered an attitude that allowed these conflicts to happen. Furthermore, they describe the wars as both a military and moral embarrassment.

With a keen eye for detail and a lyrical style, Jeff Klinkenberg sets his sights on the contradictions that make up the Sunshine State. No one else would think to engage a professional symphony orchestra tuba player to find out whether bull gators will thunderously bellow back at a low B-flat during mating season (they do, but only to that pitch). From fishing camps and country stores to museums and libraries, Klinkenberg is forever unearthing the magic that makes Florida a place worth celebrating.

With thirty years of backcountry patrol experience in Florida, Bob Lee has lived through incidents of legend, including one of the biggest environmental busts in Florida history. His fascinating memoir reveals the danger and the humor in the unsung exploits of game wardens.