Florida Books

Dr. Hann continues to generate impressive works on colonial Florida. This account focuses on the native province of Apalachee (near modern day Tallahassee) and details their story from Prehistory to the present. In the book, Dr. Hann incorporates transcriptions and translations of original Spanish documents as well as modern archaeological research. This book is the standard for Apalachee history.

An informative piece that is a must read for anybody that wants to know about summary procedure in Florida.

I am intrigued by the continuing controversy over Aosdana's election to the office of Saoi of my cousin Francis Stuart, author of Black List. Francis is the cousin I didn't know I had, at least until last year. The family black sheep, the skeleton in the cupboard, he has been the family member that everyone found so hard to deal with that it was easier to deny his existence completely and since the war he has been written out of the family history, both in Burke's 1958 Landed Gentry of Ireland and in their 1978 Irish Family Records. It was not until I found the rather obscure 1930 family history "Three Hundred Years in Inishowen" by our mutual cousin Amy Young (nee Stuart) that I started to fill in the gaps and realised who he was. Francis has said (Irish Times,November 14, 1996, "Nothing But Doubt") that "the Stuart family, however, never forgave Francis's mother and blamed her for Henry's death." That's probably only a partial truth; rather, Henry's suicide shattered the family in ways that have resonated down the generations. The collective failure of the Stuart family, including, but not only, Francis, to integrate the trauma were surely a factor in the 1993 suicide of his and my cousin, travel writer Miles Clark, and so it continues. I confess I read Black List Section H at least in part neither as a literary masterpiece nor as a justification for Francis' wartime actions, but as a family history. Where he writes of how "he'd imagined his cousin Stella coming to his room at night to initiate him into the sexual mystery" I read of my godmother, later Stella Greer, who used to send me 5 quid at Christmas, and was said to be a bit of an old dragon. I presume she was the cousin whose love-letters Francis kept in the pigeon-holes of his roll-top desk at Rugby (Things to Live For (1934) ,page 17) and mentions again on the first page of Black List. And I suspect that, despite two marriages and a divorce, her cousin Francis was in some ways the unrecognised love of her life. I didn't meet her until she was eighty, but as Francis confirms, she must have been young once!

The claims against Francis of anti-semitism are a malicious nonsense. Francis's biographer J.H.Natterstad (Irish Writers series, 1974) notes that "There is no evidence whatever that he saw the Jew as part of an international conspiracy or as the incarnation of evil. Although he was not sympathetic to what he saw as the Jewish obsession with money, the Jew was, as the archetypal outcast, a natural ally and was treated as such in "Julie" (written in 1938, a year before he went to Germany). Natterstad also notes that at Rugby, "There were others, he discovered, who felt themselves outsiders, and they formed their own clique, which insulated them to some extent against the life around them: 'Well, we Irish and a Jew and a Pole,' he recalled, 'we made a little group, and it was good.' " Francis has said that "I have spoken and written several million words in my life. No one could ever point to a sentence of mine that was or is anti-Semitic." In fact he could go further than merely denying any expression of anti-semitism; he has firmly nailed his colours to the mast and they contain nary a shred of racial or other prejudice. The only circumstance in which I could imagine Francis being anti-Jew is if he went to live in Israel, when he would no doubt quickly identify with the downtrodden Palestinians.

But it should be remembered that Francis was not the only member of his family to spend the war in Germany, the other being his cousin's son, my uncle Bob Stewart-Moore. Bob,brought up on the same Queensland sheep station where Francis Stuart was born, and traumatised not by the suicide of Henry Stuart but by the accidental death an elder brother Henry Stewart-Moore, was in bombers, shot down over Germany and,rather than being "passionately involved in my own living fiction", as Francis Stuart claims to have been, spent three and a half years as a prisoner of war at Lamsdorf, some fifty kilometres from Auschwitz. He then walked 500 miles in three months through Poland and Germany in the middle of winter to freedom at the end of the war, eventually being picked up by American troops near Muhlhausen. The group of Australians with whom he was imprisoned recently published a book on the experience, titled "The RAAF POWS of Lamsdorf", which is certainly anything but fiction, and in it Bob recounts the experience of being shot down, crashing in the Elbe canal, getting out of the plane underwater, and being imprisoned by the Germans. Certainly a different way of entering Germany to that chosen by his cousin Francis! One can only hope that the account in Black List of Francis's meeting with a POW at Frankfurt is not a (heavily disguised) description of a wartime meeting with his cousin. The age is wrong, as is the nationality and the rank. In fact the flying boots are about the only thing that is right. But the overtly and quite unnecessarily sexual references he ascribes to Captain Manville are something that this encounter has in common with Francis's descriptions of his cousins Maida and Stella: Are they a device he has used to distance himself from a connection uncomfortably intimate? Do I read too much into this encounter, or are there some subjects too tough even for Francis Stuart's brutal brand of honesty? The Aosdána award seems richly deserved, awarded as it is on literary merit, and I congratulate him on it. But now that he has done the easy bit and made his peace with Ireland and the world, perhaps it's time Francis tried something a little more challenging, and started to reintegrate with his family, starting with Bob Stewart-Moore in Sydney? I would have given Francis a ten for a book that I found to be quite enthralling (and not only for the family connections), but subtract one point for what appears to be his apparent failure to confront this most difficult of issues.

I recommend this book very highly. Khashan is a professor at the American University of Beirut and is the perfect man to to tell us about the predicament of the Arabs. He is neither an apologist for the Arabs nor a Thomas L. Friedman type of enemy. He sees things as they are: he demonstrates that Western imperialism and Zionist colonialism of the 19th and 20th centuries have soured the Arabs on democracy and Westernization by polluting their experience of democracy and the West with totalitarian colonial regimes (in Algeria, Egypt, Tunisia, Syria, Iraq, Palestine . . .) and the ongoing injustice towards the Palestinians. He reminds us that the Arabs expected to share in the self-determination of nations that was in the air around WW I, and that the colonial regimes the West created in their stead was felt by them as a great betrayal. The European support for the creation of Israel was also a betrayal they have not been permitted to forget as Israel continues to expand day by day with US complicity. And yet, he also demonstrates that the Arab countries have never really changed from the basically tribal and particularistic places they were before the modern period -- if anyone needs to be reminded that the states of Iraq, Syria, and Lebanon were created by the West for their own purposes, and that there is little indentification with these states among those who live under them. Look at Lebanon! Khashan shows how the failure of Arab nationalism and the betrayals by the West have contributed to the rise of the Islamists, who represent something of a retreat to the pre-colonial era, but also that there is no future in the Islamist states, as witness Iran and Afghanistan. He calls for a new rationalism that is also culturally compatible with Islamic values, but asks that people forget the old dreams of an Islamic state a la the Taliban. Khashan looks at the wreck of the Arab world and the triumph of the US and Israel at dictating regional developments, and asks the Arabs to wake up and stop rejecting the only path that can bring them out of their sloth: to introduce rational politics in place of dictatorships, representational government, a workable and modern Arab and Islamic culture, and economies that function (i.e., not the old socialist states that barely function). Since none of these are now present, he is pointing the way towards something that he hopes can emerge. But surely he is correct, and all of the supporters of Hamas or the Saudis or Bin Ladin are barking up the wrong tree. There may be a certain comfort for traditional people in falling back on old certainties, but there is no future in Islamis. It is more of a sign of weakness and wounded pride than anything else, and Khashan tells us so in no uncertain terms. US patriots and Zionists will not want to hear anything from Khashan except his discriptions of Arab weakness and the regional sources of it. Many angry Arabs may be furious at Khashan for suggesting that there are any causes of Arab weakness besides Israel and the US. What makes Khashan so valuable is that he spares no one, and acts as what a scholar should be: a critic. For that reason, I recommedn him very highly.

The history of America's earliest settlement has been reinterpreted over the last twenty years. Archaeology of Colonial Pensacola summarizes the para-historical research and development that has developed over the last two decades and how it has influenced the history of Pensacola. Editor Judith A. Bense discusses in her preface that though Pensacola was first settled in 1559, the excavation of colonial Pensacola is very new, in fact the first excavations occurred by accident only in 1983. This 1983 site in downtown Pensacola turned in to research and surveying nearly every square inch of the greater Pensacola area and produced one of the best public representations of archaeological history in the nation. Archaeology of Colonial Pensacola follows the work of the University of Western Florida's fledgling archaeology institute and then "presents their discoveries and interpretations of documents" (p. xiii). These discoveries of the archaeology of Pensacola give the modern historian crucial insight into the undocumented culture and everyday lives of the colonial settlers and the environment in which they existed.

Dr. Judith Bense received her PhD in Terrestrial Archaeology at Washington State University, while doing her undergraduate and Master's work in Florida (Archaeology Institute of University of Western Florida official website, http://uwf.edu/archaeology/ facstaff/). She is currently professor of archaeology and anthropology at the University of Western Florida (UWF). In 1980, Bense started an anthropology-archaeology department at UWF for certain reasons: "the area's untouched resources" (p. xv) and the fact that she would be "the area's first archaeologist in residence" (p. xv). She built a neophyte archaeology program in to one of the best archaeological institutes in the nation, in a matter of a few short years. Bense's true accomplishment was that the city of Pensacola "pioneered the melding of public interest (and support) with archaeological and historical research. The Pensacola model, which has received national awards and acclamation, has inspired similar projects through the United States" (p. xv).

While Bense writes some of this book, the majority is written by her own former students; those who majored in archaeology. As all of the archaeological sites in Pensacola were excavated by students at UWF, these students are just as much experts on this subject as Bense, herself. As a full fledged archaeologist, Bense's own writing in this volume is incredibly accessible, as is the writing of her students. Though the descriptions of their discoveries are extensive, never is it dry. The accessibility fused with the abundance of raw research data found in the appendixes, makes it for an archaeologist well worth the [...]; however for the casual history reader out of the price range. As it is, the volume is absolutely indispensable when studying the history of colonial Pensacola, due to the fact that is one of only a handful written on the subject.

In contrast to Bense's balance of documents and archaeology, the only other full-length book on colonial Pensacola entitled, Santa Maria de Galve, A Story of Survival, by Virginia Parks, deals almost exclusively with documents. In A Story of Survival, Parks, however, does use some data presented in Bense's volume. It is not an exaggeration to state that Judith Bense owns the expertise on the archaeology of Pensacola.

There is no debate that the documented history of Pensacola must be studied across the disciplines to include, for certain, archeology. It is definite that Judith Bense and the UWF archaeology program have answered many questions plaguing Pensacola's history and the data has been wrapped up in Archaeology of Colonial Pensacola in a very accessible, cross-discipline book.

Teresa Pangle
December 2006

This book, a synthesis of the dig performed at the McKeithen site in northern Florida, is one of the best syntheses available about the Weeden Island culture, which flourished from 200 - 900 A.D., as the book title implies.

While the book is well written and extremely informative - virtually every aspect of the dig is covered in great and useful detail - the work raises a number of important questions which are left unanswered. What was the relationship, if any, of the Weeden Island culture to other contemporaneous archaeological cultures throughout the greater Southeast - for example, the Hopewell culture? Was the Weeden Island "culture", as defined by archaeologists, an actual cultural system or discrete group of people, or was it a system of belief that was shared by a number of Florida's tribes or chiefdoms? Since Weeden Island sites are located in areas where later groups were known to speak dissimilar languages, should we be speaking of a "culture" in considering Weeden Island artifacts?

As with any good work on archaeology, the work addresses what can be known about these issues - the chapter on Weeden Island symbolism and beliefs, based on pottery iconography, is among the best of the work. However, the issues raised by the book cry out for further study.

Despite these issues, however, the book is and remains a very important work for either the specialist in the Woodland period, or anyone interested in Southeastern archaeology. I highly recommend it.

This book, published in 1994, is still the standard reference for anyone wanting to understand the archaeology of the Native American cultures of Florida up to the time of European contact in the early 1500's.

Dr. Milanich begins with the earliest Native American cultures known in Florida (or anywhere in the Americas), the Paleoindians, arriving more than 12,000 years ago. He traces the growth of Native American cultures through the Early, Middle, and Late Archaic periods, and examines what we know of the cultures of northern, central, and southern Florida - ending with the St. Johns II, Fort Walton, Safety Harbor, and Caloosahatchee cultures, which were, respectively, the Timucuan, Apalachee, Tocobaga, and Calusa known to us from the historic records.

Milanich is extremely readable, and his work provides clear, fascinating, and important detail about each of the cultures known to archaeology from this entire region. For those who mistakenly think Florida's Native cultures were limited to the Seminoles, this book shows how the peoples of Florida, the first in all North America to encounter Europeans, were among the most powerful and complex societies north of the peoples of Mesoamerica.

Whether you're an archaeologist or historian specializing in studies of the people of this region, or a general reader with an interest in Native American culture and history - buy this book. It's excellent and enjoyable reading.

First written as a report for the National Park Service in 1988, Archaeology of the Everglades by Florida archaeologist John W. Griffin is an extensive documentation of the pre-Columbus human occupation of the interior portion of the region. Portraying the Everglades' climate, landscape, and the culture and social organizations of its inhabitants, Archaeology Of The Everglades is an authoritative and scholarly survey and analysis of the profound influence human settlement had on the Everglades environment and a legacy left to future generations. Deftly edited by Jerald T. Milanich (Curator of Archaeology, Florida Museum of Natural History) and James J. Miller (State Archaeologist and Chief of Florida's Bureau of Archaeological Research), Archaeology Of The Everglades is a welcome and recommended addition to professional and academic Archaeological Studies collections.

This book, edited by David Anderson and Ken Sassaman, is a synthetic study by many authors on the current archaeology of the Mid-Holocene Southeast - that is, the middle and late Archaic period in southeastern North America, from roughly 7,000 years before the present until a bit more than 2,500 years ago. The book examines in detail what we currently know of the Native American societies which existed during this period, and significantly updates and expands what we have known about these cultures.

It has been traditional to regard all of the Native American cultures of this time as "hunter-gatherers", with the unfortunate connotation of "primitive" which that term carries. This book takes us beyond merely looking at environment and tool-using technology to show that the peoples of the middle and late Archaic had complex cultures based on a changing environment. One of the best series of essays is by Russo, who shows that the "shell heaps" found in northern Florida and elsewhere were almost certainly deliberately constructed monuments, with ritual and cultural significance for the people who built them. There is also discussion of what is known of the Poverty Point site in Louisiana, an example of extraordinary construction and cultural sophistication centuries before the Mississipian era.

While some of the chapters are somewhat weaker due to lack of more complete data to support certain assertions (the chapter on Poverty Point is an example), the book as a whole is a useful and readable addition to our knowledge of the Archaic southeast. I highly recommend this book for anyone interested in the Native American cultures of the southeastern United States, as well as professional archaeologists.

When I began this book, on one of my professors' recommendation, I wasn't sure where the authors would be going. Part of my confusion stemmed from the issues of how to define "traditions", since there's several definitions in vogue among archaeologists and historians.

After reading it, I can only say, "Well done!" The authors are participants in a symposium on the topic created by Timothy Pauketat, with these papers modified for publication. Each chapter considers the ways in which "tradition" has been defined by the cultures of the American Southeast, including Native American cultures from the historic, back to the late Archaic, as well as African-American slaves and European colonists in the area. The writers argue very convincingly that resistance to domination and control by other cultures has been present in this area for millenia; furthermore, they demonstrate quite well how the patterns observable in the historic and archaeological record of this region may apply to other cultures worldwide.

Very interesting and enjoyable, and highly recommended, particularly for any scholars or students considering issues of ethnicity, identity, power, and resistance.