Books published by University Press of Florida

Researchers who study ancient human diets tend to focus on meat eating, since the practice of butchery is very apparent in the archaeological record. In this volume, Julie Lesnik brings a different food source into view, tracing evidence that humans and their hominin ancestors also consumed insects throughout the entire course of human evolution.

After criticism by activists, historians, and the media, Manfred Berg restores the NAACP to its place in the civil rights movement. He challenges the legalistic and bureaucratic image of the NAACP and reveals a resourceful, dynamic, and politically astute organization that did much to open up the electoral process to black participation.

In the mid-twentieth century, a grassroots movement of women--mostly white, middle-class, and conservative--sought to shape the political, cultural, and social ideologies of the baby boomers in what they perceived was a quickly changing world poisoned by communism.In Challenge and Change, June Melby Benowitz draws on a wide variety of primary sources to highlight the connections between the women of the Old Right, the New Right, and today's Tea Party. Through interviews, as well as through their letters to presidents, editors, and one another, Benowitz allows these women to speak for themselves. She examines the issues that stirred them to action--education, health, desegregation, moral corruption, war, patriotism, and the Equal Rights Amendment--and explores the development of the right-wing women's movement and its growth from the mid-twentieth into the twenty-first century.

Driven by exacting methods and hard data, this volume reveals gender dynamics within the dance world in the twenty-first century. It provides concrete evidence about how gender impacts the daily lives of dancers, choreographers, directors, educators, and students through surveys, interviews, analyses of data from institutional sources, and action research studies.

Ancient cities were complex social, political, and economic entities, but they also suffered from inequality, poor sanitation, and disease - often more than rural areas. In The Ancient Urban Maya, Scott Hutson examines ancient Maya cities and argues that, despite the hazards of urban life, these places continued to lure people for many centuries.

Tracing evidence of mind-altering substances across a diverse range of ancient cultures, this collection explores how and why past civilizations harvested, manufactured, and consumed drugs. Case studies examine the use of stimulants, narcotics, and depressants by hunter-gatherers who roamed Africa and Eurasia, prehistoric communities in North and South America, and Maya kings and queens.

Tracing the development of the US presidency since Harry S. Truman took office in 1945, this volume describes the many ways the president's actions have affected the development of capitalism in the post-World War II era. Contributors show how the American ""Consumer-in-Chief"" has exerted a decisive hand as well as behind-the-scenes influence on the national economy and everyday American life.

Alongside Memphis, Detroit, New Orleans, Macon, and Muscle Shoals, Florida has a rich soul music history - an important cultural legacy that has often gone unrecognized. Florida Soul celebrates great artists of the Sunshine State who have produced some of the most electric, emotive soul music America has ever heard.

In ancient Maya cities, ""E Groups"" are sets of buildings aligned with the movements of the sun. This volume presents new archaeological data to reveal that E Groups were constructed earlier than previously thought - in fact, they are the earliest identifiable architectural plan at many Maya settlements.

Focusing on the daily concerns and routine events of people in the past, Investigating the Ordinary argues for a paradigm shift in the way southeastern archaeologists operate. Instead of dividing archaeological work by time periods or artifact types, the essays in this volume unite separate areas of research through the theme of the everyday.