Florida Books

It gets 5 stars because it's an excellent effort to catalog and chronicle Old Florida's Finest killed in action. The author put a lot of work in this reference book, and it shows. It's a dandy addition to Floridiana.

But he felt, what?, compelled to include a PC disclaimer that the people he's celebrating were, gasp, racists and members of the KKK in some instances. The good Doctor needs to read some of Abe Lincoln's comments if he wants 'racist.' It would be a good thing if PC perfessers of the 21st Century would resist the urge to judge past times with our standards.

Otherwise, the book is a must have.

Fort Center, near Lake Okeechobee Florida, is one of the most fascinating archaeological sites in America. The Indians who lived there built mounds and gigantic circles of dirt, may have been the first in America to cultivate maize, and participated in a mortuary cult.

This book chronicles the excavation of the site and discusses the finds.

Appropriately illustrated, this book is a model of how archaeological research should be reported.

The Book was great, we would buy from them again. Thanks

Kevin, as always, is a master story teller. This book blends that mastery with a sound knowledge of the subject matter evidencing lots of research. Brings a few tears, but well worth reading.....

Ever wonder how the English managed to settle the current United States East Coast with little Spanish opposition? Most people think of the famous Spanish Armada defeated off the coast of Britain in the late 16th century as paving the way.

John McGrath's new book, "The French in Early Florida", relates, for most of us, a brand new chapter in the the era of Colonial conquest in America, more than twenty years before the Armada, that changed the history of where the lines were finally drawn between the Spanish, French and English, and helps explain clearly, for the first time, why the French ended up so far to the North in Canada, and why the Spanish stopped their expansion at the northern border of Florida.

Taking complex politics, stretched and distorted by conflicting forces of nationalism, and the Protestant Reformation, McGrath clearly explains how the French and Spanish battled for a beach head in Florida and how this confrontation affected not just American Colonial history, but the very important history of the reformation in Europe, nearly tearing apart France and further polarizing the intolerant Spanish monarchy and its partner, the Catholic Church.

History is really made by people, and this book brings alive the colorful people that fomented and fought the battles for dominance in Florida. The primary source material for this work was difficult to research and the first hand recounts conflicting and fragmented. The big achievement here was using these source materials to build detailed portraits of the main characters, deducing their motivations and rationale for the actions that they took.

After building the foundation and background for the conflict in Florida, this book brings the final confrontation to life in the last chapters, describing the tactics, circumstances and decisions leading up to the awful massacre and defeat of the French expedition and French settlers in Florida. It is exciting, yet terrifying to imagine all of this taking place a short distance north of the present Kennedy Space Center where we routinely send people to explore the next frontier in outer space!

We all hear of the hurricanes that touch Florida and the Carribean on an almost regular basis. As you will find out when you read this book, one particular Hurricane, perhaps the very first one documented occuring in Florida, had an impact on history in America that was greater than all of these unpredictable tropical storms seen by us in Florida since!

"The French in Early Florida - In the Eye of The Hurricane" is beautifully printed and has excellent illustrations and maps. Most impressively, there is an extensive Appendix covering all the source material used, with notes, bibliography, and a great index. For any student of American colonial history, this is a must read. For anyone with a love of history and a sense for those special episodes that forever change the future, you won't be disappointed.

This book serves two important functions. First, it teaches children about the science of dolphins in an entertaining way. Second, it acts as a model of scientific texts that will help them to use more complex books as they grow more advanced.

Complete with diagrams, photographs, and an index, the book takes teaching us about dolphins seriously, but the text itself remains engaging enough to keep our interest.

Readers will learn everything from the evolution of dolphins to the surprising level of intelligence they have displayed. It also presents many interesting anecdotes that help to illustrate key concepts.

I highly recommend this book as a way to inspire learning about dolphins, and about the natural world in general.

The book is 200 plus pages of anecdotes about Florida and Georgia, from the Civil War to the mid 20th Century. Life for the common folk was difficult, and government was as much parasite, then as now. I enjoyed it as much as Volume ONE.

The book is a fat collection of stories and memoirs of a colorful and eloquent Cracker Judge. Lotsa excellent first-hand historical experiences.

It may be a little better than Volume One.

this book tells me all about the area of sunny Isles,its hotels land mass,and a little about the future of it.

This powerful narrative, written by a direct descendant of the princess Yani, draws on stories of incidents taken from the author's family history that were passed from generation to generation until set down here.

For a time, Yani is happy as a slave on Denfield's South Carolina plantation. She becomes the favorite of black and white alike. Denfield's sons instruct her in grammar and deportment. At a festive plantation "slave wedding," she is mated with the giant slave Koba amid much feasting and merriment.

Deep sorrow comes when Yani's slave husband and their daughter, Yola, are sold to other masters. Years pass, and Yani learns nothing of her child's fate. She does not even know that she has a grandchild. Yet why is she so strangely attracted to the slave girl Lucinda, whom she meets in Charleston?

Yani seeks consolation in the music she plays on her African harp, and in her prophetic visions, which reveal that her people will be freed from bondage and find the peace she so deeply desires. Her story, "From the Slave Cabin of Yani," is a moving account of slavery and a woman's hopes for her children and her people.