THE NEW HISTORY OF FLORIDA
edited by Michael Gannon (University Press of Florida, 466 pages, $34.95). The group of experts who contributed to this book document the political, economic, military, religious, and social history of the Sunshine State. Intended for general readers and scholars alike, the project was undertaken to commemorate the 150th anniversary of Florida’s statehood in 1995. Gannon’s comprehensive history records the coming of the original settlers about 10,000 years ago; the arrival of the Spaniards in the sixteenth century, followed by three hundred years of Spanish and British rule; the development of Florida’s Seminole and Miccosukee Indian tribes; the transfer of sovereignty from the Spanish to the Americans in 1821; the state’s role in the Civil War; how the Great Depression of the 1930s affected the state; and the politics of Florida during the twentieth century.
