Browse by Subject: History

Please note that while you may order forthcoming books at any time, they will not be available for shipment until shortly before publication date

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The Extraordinary Life of Jane Wood Reno: Miami's Trailblazing Journalist

Journalist, activist, and adventurer, Jane Wood Reno was one of the most groundbreaking and colorful American women of the twentieth century. Told by her grandson, George Hurchalla, this is an intimate biography of a free thinker who shattered barriers during the explosive early years of Miami.

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Star Crossed: The Story of Astronaut Lisa Nowak

This book is a behind-the-scenes look at the bizarre crime of astronaut Lisa Nowak, who drove 900 miles to intercept and confront her romantic rival in an airport parking lot—allegedly using diapers on the trip so she wouldn’t have to stop. This is a riveting journey inside the high-pressure world of one of America’s most elite agencies and the life of one beleaguered astronaut.

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The Governors of Florida

An unparalleled two-hundred-year history of Florida’s highest office, this volume provides the first in-depth examination of all of Florida’s chief executives from the acquisition of Spanish Florida by the United States and the appointment of Andrew Jackson as the territory’s first governor in 1821 to the end of Rick Scott’s tenure in 2019.

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The Last Resort: Jewish South Beach, 1977–1986

Before the high rises, the nightlife, and the fashion scene, Miami’s South Beach was a retirement haven for American Jews. In The Last Resort, photographer Gary Monroe presents a collection of images that preserve his observations of this vanished time.

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This Day in Florida History

Featuring one entry per day of the year, this book is a fun and enlightening collection of moments from Florida history. Good and bad, famous and little-known, historical and contemporary, these events reveal the depth and complexity of the state’s past. 

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The Columbia Restaurant Spanish Cookbook

In this narrated cookbook, Adela Hernandez Gonzmart and Ferdie Pacheco memorialize their passion for the Columbia, the nation’s largest Spanish restaurant and Florida’s oldest restaurant. This special 115th anniversary edition of the The Columbia Restaurant Spanish Cookbook features a touching foreword by Andrea Gonzmart Williams, granddaughter of Adela.

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Yamato Colony: The Pioneers Who Brought Japan to Florida

Opening a window onto the little-known Japanese-American heritage of Florida, Yamato Colony is the true tale of a daring immigrant venture that left behind an important legacy. Ryusuke Kawai tells how a Japanese farming settlement came to be in south Florida, far from other Japanese communities in the United States.

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Latino Orlando: Suburban Transformation and Racial Conflict

Latino Orlando portrays the experiences of first- and second-generation immigrants who have come to the Orlando metropolitan area from Puerto Rico, Cuba, Mexico, Venezuela, Colombia, and other Latin American countries. While much research on immigration focuses on urban destinations, Simone Delerme delves into a middle- and upper-class suburban context, highlighting the profound demographic and cultural transformation of an overlooked immigrant hub.

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The Public Health Nurses of Jim Crow Florida

Highlighting the long unacknowledged role of a group of pioneering professional women, The Public Health Nurses of Jim Crow Florida tells the story of healthcare workers who battled racism in a state where white supremacy formed the bedrock of society. They aimed to serve those people out of reach of modern medical care.  

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Deadly Virtue: Fort Caroline and the Early Protestant Roots of American Whiteness

In Deadly Virtue, Heather Martel argues that the French Protestant attempt to colonize Florida in the 1560s significantly shaped the developing concept of race in sixteenth-century America. Telling the story of the short-lived French settlement of Fort Caroline in what is now Jacksonville, Florida, Martel reveals how race, gender, sexuality, and Christian morality intersected to form the foundations of modern understandings of whiteness.