Books by University Press of Florida

Darlene Sadlier's detailed commentary on Pessoa's work explores some of the cultural, political, and personal implications of the artistic impersonation that made him one of the major figures in modern literature. He created a large gallery of authors, each with his own history, who also wrote essays commenting on one another--including Fernando Pessoa "himself." Sadlier's study demonstrates the scope of Pessoa's writing, ranging in style from "artless" simplicity to subtle, almost Borgesian irony, and it also traces the ways in which Pessoa's four major "authors" (which he called "heteronyms") are related to one another. Sadlier shows that the four poets engage in a dialogue, enabling Pessoa to dramatize the contradictions in his attitudes toward language, history, and society. And she demonstrates that, while distinct in attitude and style, they nevertheless share a preoccupation with the nature of poetry and are responsible for some of the most unusual and skillfully composed verse in the twentieth century. In striking fashion, they anticipate the postmodern deconstruction of the idea of authorship. Sadlier offers a historical context for Pessoa's work, grounding his poetry in Portuguese culture and the major political and artistic concerns of his day. She presents an especially important commentary on his childhood verse and on the early, formative stages of his writing. Finally, she discusses his posthumous reputation, showing how he has been ironically transformed into a single, apparently unified figure who has become, for many, a symbol of Portugal's national identity.

"A comprehensive and challenging assessment of southern charitable practices. Viewing poor relief in terms of what the agencies did, Lockley downplays theory-laden approaches that focus exclusively on what laws and elites said."--T. Stephen Whitman, Mt. St. Mary's UniversityPublic welfare in the United States has existed in one form or another since the colonial period. Most historical investigations into the practice tend to focus on urban settings, mostly in the North. Welfare and Charity in the Antebellum South offers a much-needed counterpoint, revealing both the breadth of how southerner elites helped their poor, even in rural areas, and the racial impetus behind their actions.In the nineteenth century, private benevolence was almost exclusively for whites. Public welfare in the South was disproportionately targeted at poor whites, and included the founding of state-supported schools, orphan and health care, and efforts to ameliorate starvation. As a result, poor whites' resentment of the rich was diminished, and they were, as a group, more willing to cast their lot with slaveholders as the Civil War loomed large.This work ranges over the entire South and makes important comparisons between the upper and lower South, between urban and rural areas, and between welfare efforts in the South and in the North, where charity typically--and incorrectly--has been seen as more widespread.

"Finally! Every American student of history, every American diplomat and member of Congress should read this important book. It uncovers a little-known but vitally important chapter in the long relationship between the United States and the Muslim world."--Robert J. Allison, Suffolk University"A thorough and impressive study.... Its detailed 'case study' of these diplomatic negotiations, important in itself, also offers useful insights into the evolution of early American relations with the outside world."--L. Carl Brown, Princeton UniversityThis book tells the story of America's first hostage crisis, which began in 1785 with the capture of two American ships off the coast of Portugal, and provides the intriguing details of the diplomacy mobilized to address the crisis. The incident constituted America's first challenge from the Muslim world and led to the creation of the U.S. Navy and to an American naval presence in the Mediterranean, which has continued intermittently to the present.The Algerine corsairs (also known as the Barbary pirates), who seized the American seamen, played by the strange set of rules that operated 200 years ago along the Barbary Coast. Interested in booty and ransom money, they routinely extorted "tribute" from merchant ships that were not protected by treaty or navies. With no navy of its own and no longer covered by British treaties after the Revolutionary War, the United States eventually had to buy its way to peace with the Barbary powers. By the time the episode was resolved in 1796, American seamen had spent eleven years as prisoners in Algiers and the U.S. had paid close to a million dollars in cash and kind to ransom 103 surviving captives from 13 ships. However, from 1801 to 1805, the U.S. was again at war with Tripoli over the tribute demanded--the struggle celebrated in the opening lines of the Marine Corps Hymn. Although the popular slogan at the time was "Millions for defense, not one cent for tribute," the U.S. eventually paid $60,000 for a treaty with Tripoli.Uncle Sam in Barbary is based on dispatches, personal papers, and the official communications of those involved, including unpublished Italian and Tunisian documents. Richard Parker puts flesh on the bare bones of the standard narrative of this crisis, bringing to life the fate and identity of the American captives as well as the leaders in Algiers and clarifying for the first time the unhelpful roles played by the British and French. This history offers insights for today about the roles of diplomacy and military force in international relations. A major episode in the foreign affairs of the early Republic, the events involved a roll call of American founding fathers--including George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, James Madison, James Monroe, and Alexander Hamilton.Richard B. Parker, former ambassador to Algeria, Lebanon, and Morocco, has taught at the University of Virginia, Lawrence University, and Johns Hopkins University.

"A work of solid scholarship that challenges the notion of the United States as the 'rampant eagle' in its relations with Latin America . . . will appeal to specialists in Latin American studies, U.S. diplomatic history, and international relations, and will likely make the required reading lists of graduate students in these fields."--Charles D. Ameringer, Pennsylvania State University Steven Schwartzberg reinterprets U.S. foreign policy in Latin America during the Truman presidency. He examines the dynamic interaction between American policy and political developments in Latin America to show how ideas for pursuing the common good were far more influential than notions of American economic and political interests, and that those ideas shifted with the course of ongoing political struggles in Latin America and with the convictions of individual American officials. Contrary to analyses that emphasize the growing Cold War rivalry in examining Latin American developments after World War II, Schwartzberg demonstrates that these superpower tensions were not the only influences in the post-1945 world. He richly documents social and political developments in Latin American countries, illustrating the receptivity of politicians, journalists, and others to U.S. initiatives and interventions in support of democracy. He also provides material on the emergence of CIA support for the democratic left and shows how Cold War considerations were associated with support for democratic and reformist movements generally.Schwartzberg challenges works that are strongly critical of U.S. policy in Latin America and documents his vision of the "civility of Yankee Imperialism" with a substantial array of archival and primary document material. He offers a new perspective on the motives of American officials and Latin American leaders, demonstrates the inadequacy of traditional conceptions of the influence of the Cold War in the region, and suggests an underlying unity in American global policy. He also shows that there was much greater autonomy in Latin American politics than diplomatic historians have previously recognized and that political leaders and developments in the region played a far more significant role in shaping American policy than Latin Americanists have previously perceived.

"The first book on the market that considers the experience of Haitians and Dominicans in the United States in one single effort of analysis and does so through the cultural venue of literary texts produced by writers from the two communities."--Silvio To

Weaving together twenty-one full-color drawings and new translations of prose pieces and poems, Only Mystery presents a textured life of Spain's greatest modern poet and playwright. In 1936 a death squad executed thirty-eight-year-old Federico Garcia Lorca, dumping the body into an unmarked common grave near his native city of Granada. This volume of his visual art - largely unknown - and his writing chronicles Lorca's short existence, beginning with poems of his childhood and ending with his prophesies of assassination. The work illuminates his vision of nature, the gypsies of southern Spain, his experiences in New York, and, above all, his sense of the mystery of love and death. The guiding principles for selecting poems, prose, and paintings were dramatic effect and narrative cohesion. Originally designed for performance in Readers Theatre, Only Mystery may be appreciated as both a dramatic text for performance and an illustrated narrative of the poet's lyrical world.

"No previous work so clearly and coherently examines the uniqueness of Cuba within the Caribbean and Hispanic American context. It is indispensable for understanding the development of society and economy in Cuba after 1762."--Franklin W. Knight, Leonard and Helen R. Stulman Professor of History, Johns Hopkins UniversitySherry Johnson's revisionist study contributes to a new understanding of colonial Cuban history in several ways. Most important, it challenges existing interpretations of Cuban history by advancing an alternative to the "sugar is forever" thesis. In doing so, Johnson provides answers to fundamental questions regarding Cuban identity in the 19th century. Johnson advances a wealth of demographic data to document the contribution of the military, particularly military spending, to social, spatial, and economic change on the island long before sugar became the principal engine of its economy. She also shows how immigration had an impact on the elite and middling ranks, analyzes family life in the city, and explains how the consequences of reform resonated to the lowest ranks of Cuban society.In addition, she establishes how the death of the Spanish monarch Charles III in 1788 brought a brutal purge of Cuban society and a new, detested captain-general to power in 1790. The political repercussions of this hated regime were felt well into the 19th century, she argues, in the genesis of a popular discourse against Spanish colonialism, sugar, and slavery.Sherry Johnson is assistant professor of history and Cuban studies at Florida International University. She is the author of articles on Cuban and Florida history in such journals as Florida Historical Quarterly, Hispanic American Historical Review, Cuban Studies, and Colonial Latin American Historical Review.

In May 1862, hundreds of African-Americans freed themselves in the Yazoo-Mississippi Delta and in the process destroyed the South's fundamental structure of power - the plantation household. Yet at the moment of freedom, southerners did not discard what they knew. Instead, blacks and whites, men and women constructed competing visions of freedom based on their particular understanding of household authority. General Freedoms explores this first generation of freedom and presents an intimate history of the political consciousness of the franchised and disenfranchised during the Civil War and Reconstruction in the Mississippi Delta. Gendered Freedoms is the first book to analyze black and white southerners' subjective understandings of the household, challenging us to reexamine the relationship between identity and political consciousness. Where others emphasize the household principally as a structure based on an ideology of power, Nancy Bercaw demonstrates how deeply household hierarchies permeated into southerners' most personal sense of themselves, shaping their perceptions of their autonomy, rights, duties, and obligations to one another. The author highlights the importance of

"Brings the subject alive in the same multifaceted way that the real-life crisis was lived. . . . It probably will not be possible again to assemble this many individuals who were in policy-making positions during the 1967 war. The interaction among them is invaluable. . . . Only a book of this kind . . . could convey that sense of partial knowledge, sharply conflicting perspectives, irrational actions, divided governments, even the closest friends not understanding each other."--Harold H. Saunders (National Security Council staff member at the White House during the Six-Day War), Kettering FoundationFormer Ambassador Richard B. Parker gathered representatives from the Israeli, Arab, Russian, and U.S. military, government, and academe, many of whom were participants in the 1967 crisis, to reexamine the steps and missteps that led to the conflict. Developed from a State Department conference marking the 25th anniversary of the war, this analysis and discussion provide the most authoritative account we have of the genesis of the Arab-Israeli war.ContentsOrigins of the Crisis: L. Carl BrownThe United Nations Response: I. William ZartmanThe Israeli Response: Bernard ReichThe Other Arab Responses: E. Ernest DawnThe View from Washington: Donald C. BergusConspiracy Theories: Richard B. ParkerConclusions: Richard B. ParkerRichard B. Parker, U.S. ambassador to Algeria, Lebanon, and Morocco from 1974 to 1979, retired from the Foreign Service in 1980. He is the author of The Politics of Miscalculation in the Middle East and North Africa: Regional Tensions and Strategic Concerns, and he edited the Middle East Journal from 1981 to 1987.

In a study of three eminent French women writers of the 20th century, the author examines the ways in which the ageing process shaped their creativity and their lives, and goes on to ask questions about a culture that depends on the ideas of sexual difference for its national identity.

"Cypress Swamps" is the first study of its kind to analyze a common southeastern ecosystem by integrating laboratory and field study with computer modeling to establish a basis for further analyses of perturbations in wetlands. Its three sections deal with the general characteristics of cypress swamps, the impact of recycling secondarily treated wastewater into cypress-dominated ecosystems, and swamps in a larger environmental context, all in an effort to define their usefulness to human systems.

"Certain to become a standard reference work on any game bird-management shelf of essential books."--J.W. Hardy, Curator in Ornithology, Florida State Museum"I doubt that anyone knows the wild turkey better than Lovett Williams and David Austin. Their years of research and experience with this magnificent American game bird are crystallized in this book. I learned more about the biology and ecology of the wild turkey and the turkey hunter in the few hours it took to read it than I had learned in a lifetime."--Herbert W. Kale II, Florida Audubon SocietyStudies of the Wild Turkey in Florida contains the results of 22 related, in-depth studies on the ecology, morphology, behavior, and management of the wild turkey in Florida. The authors describe management and research methodology invented or perfected during the course of the studies, including techniques for capturing and handling wild turkeys, radio-tracking and other markings, and observation blinds. Major topics include a description of the molting processes, reproductive behavior of the hen, life history and physical development, observation with emphasis on the nesting and brood periods, effects of sport hunting, and physical characteristics. There are recommendations for setting hunting regulations, a chapter on harvest management, and a synopsis of research and management needs.

Brazilians of African descent draw upon both Christian and African diasporic religions to construct their racial identities in a variety of intriguing ways. Focusing on the Reconcavo region of northeastern Brazil--known for its rich Afro-Brazilian traditions and as a center of racial consciousness in the country--Stephen Selka provides a nuanced and sophisticated ethnography that examines what it means to be black in Brazil. Selka examines how Evangelical Protestantism, Candomble (traditional Afro-Brazilian religion), and Catholicism--especially progressive Catholicism--are deployed in discursive struggles concerning racism and identity. In the process, he provides a model of wedding abstract theory with concrete details of everyday life. Revealing the complexity and sometimes contradictory aspects of Afro-Brazilian religious practices and racial identity, Selka brings a balanced perspective to polarized discussions of Brazilian racial politics.

"An outstanding collection . . . Engaging and readable as well as cogently argued and well researched. The analysis of the 'collective consciousness' produced by the experience of the Great Depression is both original and useful."--Melissa Walker, Converse College"A vivid portrait of how rural Southerners responded to the Great Depression and the New Deal . . . strikes a balance between letting the voices speak for themselves . . . and placing these voices within a coherent understanding of the existing historical literature of the 1930s."--Charles C. Bolton, University of North Carolina at Greensboro, formerly of the Center for Oral History and Cultural Heritage, University of Southern MississippiWith this collection of more than 600 oral histories recalling the Great Depression, Bindas provides a detailed, personal chronicle of the 1930s from a rural Southern perspective and captures a historical era and its meaning. The Depression altered the basic structure of American society and changed the way government, business, and the American people interacted. Bindas finds his narrators saw the federal government as an agent of positive change. Though their stories reflect the general despair of the era, they also reveal the hope they found through the New Deal and their determination, after the Depression, to "create a country where security . . . was paramount."Collected over a period of four years in the late 1980s and early 1990s, these reminiscences from people in rural Georgia, Alabama, and Tennessee are primarily concerned with lessons learned. Looking back on their youth, the narrators explore how the Depression defined their lives and their experiences, from subsistence and government assistance, to food and home life, fear and privation. Revealing a common consciousness among people who witnessed profound change and endured, these stories underscore the meaning of collective memory. Their simple tales form the larger story of how the American people continued to rely on the individualistic ethos even as they adopted and accepted the new ideology of social cooperation. Illustrated with Farm Security Administration (FSA) black and white photographs, this book is a vital testament to survivors of the Depression. Students and scholars of both the 1930s and oral history methodology will welcome this volume.

"I can think of no contemporary work of scholarship that does what this work does. It is original in that it examines the interplay between Panama's democratic development within the larger context of U.S. hegemony during the twentieth century . . . and unique [in its] attention to the interplay of domestic political and international (hegemonic) forces during this period."--Steve Ropp, University of Wyoming0"This update of Panama history and international relations within the context of U.S. hegemony is current, critical, and well executed."--Jeanne A. Hey, Miami University, OhioSanchez tells the story of how Panama, though one of the smallest Latin American countries, played the largest symbolic role in America's ascent to world power status, particularly during the U. S. almost century-long occupation of the Canal Zone from 1903 until December 31, 1999. A narrow isthmus linking North America and South America, Panama's strategic geographic location and size has attracted the attention of strong nation-states for 500 years. The United States would undoubtedly have become a great power without the Isthmus of Panama, but more than any other country in the hemisphere, Panama has served as a critical outpost for U.S. power and as an instrument for U.S. military and economic might. Sanchez argues that the policies of the United States toward Panama--motivated principally by the goal of preserving its hegemony in Latin America--produced a formidable barrier to developing democratic politics in Panama.Examining key events and personalities in Panama's political history from the 1850s to the present, this comprehensive survey analyzes U.S.-Panamanian relations through the 1989 removal of General Manuel Noriega by U.S. armed forces and the final disposition of the Panama Canal Treaties, culminating in the return of all canal-related lands to the Panamanian government. This book is foremost a study of power relationships, demonstrating how domestic political development cannot be understood fully without taking power at the international level into consideration. Combining theory, case study, and policy relevance, this volume makes significant contributions to both comparative politics and international relations theory, showing that domestic and international politics are two sides of one coin. Featuring a comprehensive bibliography of material in both Spanish and English, the book will be a key resource not only for Latin Americanists but for anyone interested in the process of democratization and the effects of the international system on domestic political development.Peter M. Sanchez is associate professor of political science at Loyola University, Chicago.

Examines the ways first- and second-generation Dominican-Americans in the dynamic northern Manhattan neighborhood of Washington Heights have shaped a different Dominican presence in local New York City politics. This book is useful for students of US Latino and youth culture, as well scholars of urban studies and politics, race, and immigration.

"I know of no other comprehensive and up-to-date narrative that covers all aspects of the U.S.-Cuba security relationship"--Philip Peters, Vice President of the Lexington InstituteThe United States and Cuba actually cooperate on several issues of mutual interest. This intriguing pattern of U.S.-Cuban cooperation emerged during the 1990s. Naked self-interest led the two governments to cooperate in four areas: illegal immigration, drug trafficking, decreasing tensions around Guantánamo Naval Base, and reducing the threat of unintended war. The fact that there has been any cooperation between the United States and Cuba may be surprising since the public rhetoric of animosity has always dominated U.S.-Cuban discourse.To date, there has been little systematic research on these areas of cooperation, from confidence building measures to how Cuban exile groups have attempted to undermine all levels of cooperation with the United States. Melanie Ziegler examines these issues and offers possible solutions in hopes of discovering the best pathway for avoiding future confrontation and for building normal relations in the twenty-first century. As the Fidel Castro era draws to a close, it is essential to examine and begin looking for new perspectives on U.S.-Cuban cooperation tactics.Complete with a historical background, this book is a must-read for scholars, students, policy experts, and members of the U.S. military.