U. Press of Florida

After Freedom Summer; how race realigned Mississippi politics, 1965-1986.

This history of race and electoral politics in Mississippi in the wake of the 1964 Civil Rights Act and the 1965 Voting Rights Act weighs the relative effects of race and economics on the realignment of party loyalties and the political atmosphere of state politics in the subsequent twenty years. Drawing on contemporary media accounts and personal papers of civil rights and state political leaders, the work demonstrates that the civil rights era did not truly end in the 1960s in the nation's most segregated and racially divided states. Danielson is a professor of history at Montana Tech University. (Annotation ©2011 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)

The archaeology of forts and battlefields.

Starbuck (anthropology and sociology, Plymouth State U., New Hampshire) does not pretend to describe any substantial portion of the many archaeological projects relating to forts and battlefields, but sets out some of the ideas and processes that are unique to this kind of site using case studies from US history. His topics include research priorities, beginnings in the 16th and 17th centuries, the American Revolution, Indian wars in the American west, and human remains. (Annotation ©2011 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)

Bradford's Indian book; being the true roote & rise of American letters as revealed by the native text embedded in Of Plimoth Plantation.

An independent scholar who is a member of the Cherokee nation presents an analysis from a Native perspective of Bradford's Of Plimouth Plantation (1650), an account of the contact between Massachusetts Natives and Pilgrim settlers in 1620. After tracing the story of how the manuscript made its way to London and back to the States under the title Mayflower's Log, Donohue argues a cogent case for how indigenous oral traditions, e.g., medicine narratives with animal and trickster characters, influenced American literature and stereotypes of Indians since first contact. A Cherokee glossary translates interwoven Cherokee syllabary. (Annotation ©2011 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)

The challenge of blackness; the Institute of the Black World and political activism in the 1970s.

Not long after the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. in 1968, the Institute of the Black World (IBW) was formed to seek, as Dr. King compelled, "a higher synthesis" of Black ideologies, objectives and critique. White's (history, Florida Atlantic U.) excellent study critically examines its history as a pragmatic Black Nationalist think-tank. The first chapter explores the IBW's roots in collegiate Black studies programs. There he highlights founding activist-intellectuals like Vincent Harding and Stephen Henderson for their role in disseminating the IBW's consensus-building agenda of "collective scholarship". The second chapter chronicles the separation of the IBW from the Martin Luther King Center over the latter's "rigid adherence to liberalism" and how the IBW handled this organizationally and financially. The third chapter explores the shift toward a broader "Black perspective" from its narrower concerns with Black studies curricula, and the group's political analyses and formation of a Black Agenda Network. The fourth chapter continues this exploration in IBW publications like Monthly Report and Black World View, focusing on the IBW's dedication to moving beyond the sectarianism growing between Black Nationalists and Marxists while becoming more radical in its analyses of racialized political economy, and its outreach to grass-roots organizations. The fifth chapter looks at the IBW's decline, including financial trouble, physical violence and the general conservative backlash against Black radicalism. The concluding chapter briefly evaluates the IBW's legacy in Black studies, Black political radicalism and its lessons for 21stt Century organizations. (Annotation ©2011 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)

The door of hope; Republican presidents and the first Southern strategy, 1877-1933.

Frantz's (history, U. of Indianapolis) narrative is focused and engagingly written, and the themes are eminently relevant to today's Republican Party and contemporary American politics. After an introductory overview, subsequent chapters each examine a major tour of the South by a Republican president from 1877 through 1933. This structure promotes consideration and comparison of social and cultural contexts, helps clarify political transformations over time, and highlights the antecedents of ongoing issues in the Party and, more broadly, in American society. (Annotation ©2011 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)

Dreams and nightmares; Martin Luther King, Jr., Malcolm X, and the struggle for Black equality in America.

This engaging comparative biography contrasts the lives, politics, and philosophies of the two major figure of the American civil rights era, Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X. Examining issues of integration, non-violence, Black power, and resistance, the volume explores the similarities and differences in the two leaders' beliefs and discusses ways in which they grew closer together towards the end of their lives. The work explores the complex synthesis of the effects of their differing tactics and philosophies on the subsequent movement. Public intellectual Henry Louis Gates Jr. provides a forward. Waldschmidt-Nelson is a professor of American history at the University of Munich. This volume is the English version of an original German edition published in 2000 entitled Martin Luther King-Malcolm X: Gegenspieler. (Annotation ©2011 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)

Florida's frogs, toads, and other amphibians; a guide to their identification and habits.

Veteran herpetologist and herpetoculturist R.D. Bartlett and editor and writer Patricia Bartlett have written a number of books about reptiles and amphibians in Florida for non-specialists. This one focuses on amphibians, including both native and established migrants. In addition to describing each species and illustrating it with a color photograph, chapters discuss such matters as Florida's habitats, amphibians as captives, toxicity and other potential problems, and taxonomy. A key to families is also included. The arrangement is by order and family, but the species are indexed as well. (Annotation ©2011 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)

Florida's turtles, lizards, and crocodilians; a guide to their identification and habits.

Veteran herpetologist and herpetoculturist R.D. Bartlett and editor and writer Patricia Bartlett have written a number of books about reptiles and amphibians in Florida. Here they explain to general readers how to tell the many species of turtles, lizards, and crocodilians apart, where to find them, how to handle them, and other information about them. Among the families are Dermochelyidae: leatherback sea turtles, Emydidae: basking and box turtles, Alligatoridae: alligators and caiman, Gekkonidae: geckos, Corytophanidae: basilisks, and Varanidae: monitors. They are illustrated with a substantial number of color photographs. (Annotation ©2011 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)

Guide to the vascular plants of Florida, 3d ed.

Wunderlin (emeritus, biology, U. of South Florida) and Hansen, curator of the University of South Florida Herbarium, update again the field companion to their multi-volume Flora of Florida (2000 and in progress). It presents identification keys to more than 4,200 taxa of pteridophytes and seed plants that are native or naturalized in Florida. Then it describes the species identified. Over 100 new taxa are added as a result of continuing field work, and several genera and families have been re-circumscribed as a result of recent molecular studies. No dates are noted for previous editions. (Annotation ©2011 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)

Hidden Seminoles; Julian Dimock's historic Florida photographs.

Thanks are due to two authors who have brought forward a selection of 124 gorgeous duotone images from a much larger collection of images in the archives of the American Museum of Natural History. Root, now emeritus, was director of the research library when she came across the extraordinary collection; she joined forces with Milanich (curator emeritus, Florida Museum of Natural History) to prepare this volume. They provide contextual essays and captions for the photos, which were taken over a period of five years beginning in 1905, by Julian Dimrock, a 31-year old photographer who travelled to the area with his father, a New York financier. (Annotation ©2011 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)

I fear I shall never leave this island; life in a Civil War prison.

Fueled by the human stories that emerged from his archaeological exploration on Johnson's Island on Lake Erie, Bush (anthropology, Heidelberg U.) focuses on one particular correspondence between a Confederate soldier and his wife to illuminate one officer's experience of coping with the stress and isolation of imprisonment during the US Civil War. In addition to the letters and diaries of Wesley and Catherine Makely, artifacts and other physical remains excavated bring to life a moment in time rarely mentioned in Civil War history. He hopes to whet the appetite of archaeology students and history buffs to further study and explore the perspective of the thousands locked away from the battlefield and left helpless and hopeless as the battles raged on. (Annotation ©2011 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)

Maya Christians and their churches in sixteenth-century Belize.

Graham (archaeology, U. College London) focuses on the Spanish influence in Christianizing the Maya, because they were responsible for the ruined churches she excavated at Lamanai and Tipu, but keeps in mind that after the initial conquest, the native population would be exposed to all kinds of Europeans in the colonial milieu. Among her topics are the view from Belize and the vision from St. Mike's, Yucatan and Belize on the eve of the conquest, the environment of early contact, reductions and upheaval in the 17th century, and everyone knows what a dragon looks like. Appendices list friars in Belize and bishops of Yucatan to 1714. (Annotation ©2011 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)

More Balanchine variations.

In this encore to Balanchine Variations (2008), a dance critic profiles 20 additional ballets staged by famed Russian-born American choreographer George Balanchine (1904-83), presented in chronological order from Ballet Imperial, Tschaikovsky Piano Concerto No. 2 (1941) to Morzartiana (1981). Goldner provides valuable insights into Balanchine's working relationship with the New York City Ballet and the music, the dancers' challenges, evolution of his style, and legacy. The book includes photographs and suggested reading. (Annotation ©2011 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)

Painting Dixie red; when, where, why, and how the South became Republican.

This collection of twelve essays on the rise of the Republican Party in the southern United States during the latter half of the twentieth century showcases historical scholarship on issues of race, economics, politics and regionalism that helped shape America's current political landscape. Divided into sections surrounding religion and partisanship, race and the states, economics and factionalism, and the neo-Confederacy, individual articles address such topics as the role of evangelical religion in the emergence of the Republican South, Southern segregationists and the route to national conservatism and Southern industrialists, international trade and the Republican Party in the 1950s. Contributors include academics in history, economics and political science from a variety of American universities. (Annotation ©2011 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)

Racial experiments in Cuban literature and ethnography.

This analysis of the roots of Afro-Cuban literary identity in the early independence period explores the development of an ethnographic dialog in the literature of Lydia Cabrera and her contemporaries. The work explores the ways in which "blackness," an integral feature of Cuban identity, interacted with new cultural forces of political independence and the forces of economic influence by the United States. Maguire is a professor of Spanish at Northwestern University. (Annotation ©2011 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)

Rethinking anthropological perspectives on migration.

Anthropologists, heavily weighted towards the US Southwest, seek to break down sub-disciplinary boundaries in migration research. From their perspectives in archaeology, archaeolinguistics, ethnolinguistics, and bioanthropology they explore such topics as migration in fluid social landscapes, movement and the unsettling of the Pueblos, using cognitive semantics to relate Mesa Verde archaeology to modern Pueblo languages, loanword histories and the demography of migration, migration in anthropological genetics, and evolutionary models of migration in human prehistory and their anthropological significance. (Annotation ©2011 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)

São Paulo; perspectives on the city and cultural production.

"The essays brought together in this volume all focus on the city of São Paulo, in the triple dynamic of cultural production: the critical representation of society, the analytical interpretation of the internal dynamic, and the principled imagination of alternative ways of living," writes Foster (Spanish, and women & gender studies, Arizona State U.). He continues in his introductory essay to explain that the essays do not add up to a history of the cultural production of the city, or a balanced survey. Instead, Foster aims to present a personalized selection of the city's "characteristic cultural products" — an examination of literature, art, photography, film, and architecture — and the people behind the creations. (Annotation ©2011 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)

The sea their graves; an archaeology of death and remembrance in maritime culture.

Stewart (nautical archaeology, East Carolina U.) reaches out to other disciplines such as psychology, sociology, semiotics, and religious history to explore how people have reacted to death at sea. His perspectives are the dangers of maritime life, values for a dangerous world, burial at sea as a ritual performance, remembering the missing, the anchor and the cross, and a living tradition. The study could be of interest to anthropologists and other social scientists as well as historians and scholars or students of maritime culture. (Annotation ©2011 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)

Shaw, Synge, Connolly, and Socialist provocation.

In his study of George Bernard Shaw's reception by socialist and otherwise leftist radicals in early 20th Century Ireland, Ritschel (humanities, Massachusetts Maritime Academy) blends critical literary examination and theatre history with a historical exploration of the socialist and nationalist politics leading up to the Irish Revolution. While Shaw is the focus of the study, J.M. Synge and James Connolly are heavily considered as both readers of, and writers in response to, Shaw. The first two chapters consider Shaw's earlier career in London and Fabian influences, but also his role in the gestation of Irish leftist thought within the Dublin theatre scene. Shaw's John Bull's Other Island is read in light of the controversy raised by Synge's In The Shadow Of A Glen. The third and fourth chapters move out of the theatre and into Irish socialist politics, the Red Guard, the Irish Citizen's army and Shaw's lectures on "The Poor Law and Destitution in Ireland" in light of James Connolly response to the Catholic Church's anti-socialism. The fifth chapter considers how WWI divided Irish socialists over what it meant for international worker solidarity when capitalist nations war. Shaw's play O'Flaherty V.C. is compared to Connolly's Under What Flag?, whose portrayal of Britain as a military aggressor in Ireland helped fuel the 1916 Uprising. (Annotation ©2011 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)

So excellent a fishe; a natural history of sea turtles. (reprint, 1967)

This reprint of the 1967 original text provides a new generation of readers with access to this definitive work on the natural history of sea turtles. The volume examines the history of the study of sea turtles and documents scientific efforts to conserve these majestic animals. The work includes numerous black and white photographs of the author and other scientists working with sailors, fishermen and marine experts to chart the history and habits of the turtles. The new edition includes a foreword by Karen Bjorndal, the director of the Archie Carr Center for Sea Turtle Research. Carr was a professor of zoology at the University of Florida and was the father of modern sea turtle research and conservation. (Annotation ©2011 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)

Souvenirs of the old South; Northern tourism and Southern mythology.

McIntyre (history, Middle Tennessee State U.) explores how and when the US South developed as a tourist commodity, from the late 1830s when the first promotional works on the South were published, to 1920 when the notion of an Old South was ensconced in the lexicon of tourism. She isolates, identifies and unravels recurrent images used by promotional tracts; and investigates why these images appealed to potential tourists, and how they contributed to the notion of a southern identity. (Annotation ©2011 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)