Books published by University Press of Florida

Drawing on a variety of source materials, ranging from popular print media to poetry, film, political treatises, and biographies and autobiographies, this work examines the ways in which gender operated in forming the political identities of Palestinian Arabs and Jewish Zionists.

There are numerous conflicts ensuing in the Middle East, but not all are being fought with rockets and rifles. While the Internet has proven invaluable to those who wish to uphold a patriarchal society and spread the message of Islamic fundamentalism, Muslim women have used the Web to build a transnational community intent on growing women's rights in the Middle East.There is a large disparity between a Muslim woman's role according to the Qur'an and her role as some corners of Muslim society have interpreted it. In Velvet Jihad Faegheh Shirazi reveals the creative strategies Muslim women have adopted to quietly fight against those who would limit their growing rights.Shirazi examines issues that are important to all women, from routine matters such as daily hygiene and clothing to controversial subjects like abortion, birth control, and virginity. As a woman with linguistic expertise and extensive life experience in both Western and Middle Eastern cultures, she is uniquely positioned as an objective observer and reporter of changes and challenges facing Muslim women globally.

"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.

This book focuses on the best-known and most frequently taught chanson de geste ("songs of heroic deeds") from medieval France, including the Song of Roland and the Voyage of Charlemagne.

Van Tilburg's study of the maritime heritage of Chinese junks and their transpacific voyages examines ten junks, how they were made, why and how they travelled, and how the West received them. Combining historical narrative with ethnology, anthropology, maritime archaeology, and nautical technology, he draws on a wide range of newspaper sources, nautical treatise, archaeological work, historical photos and sketches, and the testimony of the sailors themselves.

Reveals the early activism of black women in organisations including the NAACP, the South Carolina Progressive Democratic Party, and the South Carolina Federation of Colored Women's Clubs. It also explores the involvement of white women in such groups as the YWCA and Church Women United.

Using feminist and womanist theory, Simone Alexander takes as her main point of analysis literary works that focus on the black female body as the physical and metaphorical site of migration. She shows that over time black women have used their bodily presence to complicate and challenge a migratory process often forced upon them by men or patriarchal society.

This examination of a Quaker community in northern Virginia, between its first settlement in 1730 and the end of the Civil War, explores how an antislavery, pacifist, and equalitarian religious minority maintained its ideals and campaigned for social justice in a society that violated those values on a daily basis.By tracing the evolution of white Virginians' attitudes toward the Quaker community, Glenn Crothers exposes the increasing hostility Quakers faced as the sectional crisis deepened, revealing how a border region like northern Virginia looked increasingly to the Deep South for its cultural values and social and economic ties.Although this is an examination of a small community over time, the work deals with larger historical issues, such as how religious values are formed and evolve among a group and how these beliefs shape behavior even in the face of increasing hostility and isolation.As one of the most thorough studies of a pre-Civil War southern religious community of any kind, Quakers Living in the Lion's Mouth provides a fresh understanding of the diversity of southern culture as well as the diversity of viewpoints among anti-slavery activists.

Never before published, "White Rose and the Red" is the fictional biography of Elizabeth Siddall, wife of English poet and painter Dante Gabriel Rossetti. This extraordinary novel explores the charged interpersonal relationships between and among Siddall, Rossetti, and other key members of the pre-Raphaelite movement, including William Morris and John Ruskin. During H.D.'s lifetime, publishers shied away from the novel's radically unconventional hybrid form that combines elements of historical nonfiction, fiction, and biography. As part of the dense and allusive prose trilogy written during and after World War II (along with "The Sword Went Out to Sea" and "The Mystery"), "White Rose and the Red" exemplifies the mythic theme that H.D. saw as unifying all her writing. It also examines how Siddall--a controversial muse and model--came to become the iconic figure of an artistic movement.