Books published by University Press of Florida

While playing the southern lady for the white political establishment, thousands of mostly middle-class, middle-aged, married white women become grassroots activists in America's civil rights movement. These essays tell who these women were, why they became committed to racial justice, and how they organised to change southern society.

Forts and battlefields embody activities and locations where nations have come into conflict and where victory or defeat has determined the shape of modern American society. This discusses some of the most dynamic archaeological projects that have been conducted at many of the most exciting forts and battlefields throughout the United States.

"An admirable contribution to the growing literature on Maya settlement research initiated by Gordon Willey in the Belize Valley in the 1950s."--Shirley B. Mock, University of Texas, San AntonioOver half a century ago, the late Gordon Willey began his research in the Belize Valley, and ten years later he published a synthesis of his data that is recognized today as a classic study of ancient Maya settlement patterns. This new volume looks at the abundant research that has taken place in the region since the 1950s (and includes a new retrospective chapter from Willey that was submitted shortly before his death in April, 2002). The Ancient Maya of the Belize Valley represents an attempt to present in one volume the extensive data from the diverse sites in this part of Mesoamerica, one of the richest archaeological areas in the Maya world. The collection provides a key to understanding the valley's ancient political and social organization by highlighting the interconnectedness of the region's settlements.

Unique in its focus on history rather than technique, Jazz Dance offers the only overview of trends and developments since 1960. Editors Lindsay Guarino and Wendy Oliver have assembled an array of seasoned practitioners and scholars who trace the many histories of jazz dance and examine various aspects of the field.

From New Spain, to Old South, to New South, to Sunbelt, the story of how and why millions have come to Florida and influenced the enduring but changing meanings of a dreamstate. 52 b&w and 6 color photos, 4 maps.

"A welcome contribution both because Caribbean coast laborers have received relatively little attention and because Opie does such an excellent job of placing black migrants at the center of Guatemalan and Caribbean history."--Labor "A valuable contribution to the study of the theme of black immigrant workers of Guatemala."--Mesoamérica "Enriches historical narratives. This is a wonderful case study that complicates Latin American history, and particularly labor history in that region, by emphasizing the positive role played by black migrants in labor mobilization in Guatemala."--Jean Muteba Rahier, Florida International University In the late nineteenth century, many Central American governments and countries sought to fill low-paying jobs and develop their economies by recruiting black American and West Indian laborers. Frederick Douglass Opie offers a revisionist interpretation of the lives of these workers, who were often depicted as simple victims with little, if any, enduring legacy. Using primary and secondary sources as well as ethnographic data, Opie details the struggles of these workers who were ultimately inspired to organize by the ideas of Marcus Garvey.The story of black American migration to Guatemala is of interest because a substantial number of the migrant black laborers in Guatemala found there opportunities for economic advancement. Black proletarians, subsistence farmers, and businessmen who stayed on in Guatemala made an indelible mark on Guatemalan culture, particularly in the Caribbean region, where English became the lingua franca, jazz and reggae became popular forms of musical expression, and jerk chicken and meat patties became part of the local cuisine. Frederick Douglass Opie, professor of history and foodways at Babson College, is the author of Hog and Hominy: Soul Food from Africa to America. He blogs at www.foodasalens.com and has appeared on the popular American Public Media program "The Splendid Table" and on the History Channel. A volume in the series Working in the Americas, edited by Richard Greenwald and Timothy J. Minchin

Throughout the twentieth century, pioneering biological field work was conducted from Mexico through Panama by such giants in the field as Miguel Alvarez del Toro, Charles Sibley, John T. Emlen Jr., and many others. But the written reports and scientific papers detailing their discoveries leave out the adventure, sense of discovery, and unexpected humor of their time in the field.Moments of Discovery collects twenty autobiographical descriptions of the incongruous situations, captivating people and places, and the inevitable trials and tribulations that surround some of the greatest biological discoveries in Mexico and Central America from the 1930s through the 1990s. The anthology allows the entertaining and illuminating events that have mostly lived in oral history to be read and enjoyed by a broad audience.A significant contribution to the history of biological exploration, this book is a must-read for anyone considering biological field work in the region--or the amateur, armchair fieldworker who wonders what those trips were really like.

"This is a rare volume indeed."--Southern Living "A must read for anyone with a penchant for the Civil War, in particular, but more so for its people--those who loved, laughed and cried, who married, fought and died. A family's intimate thoughts have become a record of the era--the diction, the lifestyles, the morality and even the prejudice of the times."--Florida Living "The lives of Winston Stephens and his wife Octavia Bryant unfold in their letters and those written by Octavia's mother, brothers, and father. Her father remained loyal to the Union, while his two sons and his son-in-law fought for the Confederacy. Jacksonville, then a small town in northeast Florida, was protected by a small state militia. Union boats prowled the region with little risk. Battles were small and casualties light. The concerns of running a plantation, directing slaves, and escaping bankruptcy and ruin were as significant as the war itself."--Choice "The reader is riveted to this story by the literary affair between Winston and Tivie, a correspondence both tempestuous and sensuous."--Journal of Southern History "Rich with information about courtship, marriage, white attitudes toward slavery, extended kin ties, gender relations, family economics, and child rearing."--North Carolina Historical Review "Offers a vivid 'picture of what most people in the Confederacy experienced, how they coped with the daily challenges unleashed by the war, and especially what it was like for women of the home front.' . . . A substantial contribution."--Georgia Historical Quarterly "A true gem. . . . The writers are thoughtful and erudite, and what emerges is an engrossing portrait of antebellum north Florida, with its frontier life, kinship dynamics, slavery, agriculture, and the dislocation and hardship caused by the Civil War."--Florida Historical Quarterly "Just about everyone will be the richer for reading these letters, perusing ably-done maps and imagining the real people captured by prose and portrait in the Rose Cottage Chronicles."--Civil War Courier Arch Fredric Blakey, retired military historian, has written several books and numerous articles on the Civil War and Florida history, including General John H. Winder, C.S.A. Ann Smith Lainhart, a descendant of the Bryant-Stephens families, is a professional genealogist. Winston Bryant Stephens Jr., now deceased, was also a descendant of the Bryant-Stephens families.

"A worthy successor to Fabian Feminist. Shaw's influence on the self-image and public standing of women has been immense, both in his time and in our own, yet Shaw has also been widely and sometimes appallingly misunderstood. This book should help clarify the complexities of the issue and provoke continued reflection and debate."--Julie A. Sparks, San Jose State University "This collection suggests that Shaw's views of women are still relevant and provocative and that the dialogue with Shaw is far from over."--Sally Peters, author of Bernard Shaw: The Ascent of the Superman When offstage actions contradict a playwright's onstage message, literary study gets messy. In his personal life, George Bernard Shaw was often ambivalent toward liberated women--surprisingly so, considering his reputation as one of the first champions of women's rights. His private attitudes sit uncomfortably beside his public philosophies that were so foundational to first-wave feminism.In this volume, Shaw's long-recognized influence on feminism is reexamined through the lens of twenty-first-century feminist thought, providing new links between Shaw's writings and his gendered notions of physicality, pain, performance, nationalism, authorship, and politics. Through the exploration of Shaw's works, a significant amount of previously unpublished Shaw correspondence, and excerpts from the works of his feminist playwright contemporaries, Shaw and Feminisms ultimately compares Shaw's strong female characters with his real-life involvement with women, while investigating his continuing impact on theater and politics. D. A. Hadfield is lecturer in English at the University of Waterloo. She is the author of Re: Producing Women's Dramatic History: The Politics of Playing in Toronto. Jean Reynolds is professor emerita of English at Polk State College. She has written five books, including Pygmalion's Wordplay: The Postmodern Shaw. A volume in the Florida Bernard Shaw Series, edited by R. F. Dietrich

"This volume is the first of its kind. A complex mosaic of how a relatively small Late Classic Maya polity was economically, socially, and politically organized. A must-read for all Maya scholars."--James F. Garber, editor of "The Ancient Maya of the Belize Valley" "The editors have assembled a remarkable array of evidence, including several innovative analytical methods. The product is a synthetic model that will shape how we understand and study Classic Maya political economy for the next several decades."--Jason Yaeger, editor of "Classic Maya Provincial Politics" Scholars have long debated the nature of Maya political organization during the Classic period (AD 250-950). Complex questions regarding political centralization, economic change, and the role of politics and economics in the rise and collapse of the civilization have been examined and reexamined from a variety of perspectives. Antonia Foias and Kitty Emery have assembled a broad collection of essays all focused on a single polity, that of Motul de San Jose.By presenting a coherent interdisciplinary body of archaeological and environmental data, the volume offers an intensely deep, focused investigation of the various models of the ancient Maya political and economic systems. Research conducted over six seasons of fieldwork reveals a more centralized political system than expected and uncovers the workings of the ancient economic structure. The contributors offer new details concerning how involved royals and nonroyal elites were in the politics of nearby states, as well as an extensive tribute system. Antonia E. Foias is professor of anthropology at Williams College. Kitty F. Emery is associate curator of the Florida Museum of Natural History and associate professor at the University of Florida."" "A volume in the series Maya Studies, edited by Diane Z. Chase and Arlen F. Chase"

Florida provides a unique opportunity to explore the history of working men and women within a constantly changing environment. Stretching from the Spanish colonial period through the recent organizing efforts of service and agricultural workers, this collection showcases a broad spectrum of working experiences in a region that has been sorely neglected in many labor histories.The essays in Florida's Working-Class Past pay special attention to gender, race, ethnicity, migration, and social networks. Under the guidance of editors Robert Cassanello and Melanie Shell-Weiss, the contributors offer fresh analyses of labor activism, re-contextualize Indian tribute and slavery within the context of labor history, and examine major themes in labor and working-class history in one place over several centuries.

The Iroquois confederacy, one of the most influential Native American groups encountered by early European settlers, is commonly perceived as having plunged into steep decline in the late seventeenth century due to colonial encroachment into the Great Lakes region. Kurt Jordan challenges long-standing interpretations that depict the Iroquois as defeated, colonized peoples by demonstrating that an important nation of that confederacy, the Senecas, maintained an impressive political and economic autonomy and resisted colonialism with a high degree of success.By combining archaeological data grounded in the material culture of the Seneca Townley-Read site with historical documents, Jordan answers larger questions about the Seneca's cultural sustainability and durability in an era of intense colonial pressures. He offers a detailed reconstruction of daily life in the Seneca community and demonstrates that they were extremely selective about which aspects of European material culture, plant and animal species, and lifeways they allowed into their territory.

From the rainforests of Costa Rica and the Amazon to the windswept lands of Tierra del Fuego, Laura Barbas-Rhoden discusses the natural settings within contemporary Latin American novels as they depict key moments of environmental change or crisis in the region from the nineteenth-century imperialism to the present.

Although the Bahamas is geographically part of the West Indies, its population has consistently rejected attempts to link Bahamian national identity to the histories of its poorer Caribbean neighbors.

Sasha was the code name adopted by Harlem Renaissance writer Claude McKay (1889-1948) to foil investigations of his life and work. This work analyzes three of the most important works in McKay's career - the Jazz Age bestseller ""Home to Harlem"", the negritude manifesto Banjo, and the unpublished ""Romance in Marseilles"".

This collection of more than 200 of bestselling author Hiaasen's "Miami Herald" columns. . . shows you that Hiaasen's seemingly implausible fictional premises aren't really far-fetched at all. He just knows Florida ("Playboy").