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Deadly Virtue argues that the history of the French Calvinist attempt to colonize Florida in the 1560s is key to understanding the roots of American whiteness in sixteenth-century colonialism, science, and Protestantism. The book places the history of Fort Caroline, Florida, into the context of Protestant colonialism and understandings of the body, emotion, and identity held in common by travelers throughout the early Atlantic world. Protestants envisioned finding a rich and powerful Indigenous king, converting him to Christianity, and then establishing a Protestant-Indigenous alliance to build an empire under Indigenous leadership that would compete with European monarchies. However, when the colony was wiped out by the Spanish, these Protestants took this as a condemnation from their god for this plan of collaborating with Indigenous people and developed separatist strategies for future Protestant colonial projects. By introducing the reader to the humoral model of the body, this book shows how race, gender, sexuality, and Christian morality came to intersect in modern understandings of whiteness.

La Meri (Russell Meriwether Hughes, 1899–1988) was a performing artist, choreographer, teacher, and writer who built her career on ethnologic dance from many parts of the world. In the 1920s and 1930s, under the management of her agent-husband Guido Carreras, she toured in Latin America, Europe, Asia, the Pacific, and the United States. Despite the heavy schedule of travel and performances, she was able to obtain instruction in local dance genres, purchase costumes, and obtain recordings of the music in many of the countries. The new material would then be added to her concert programs. In late 1939, touring was no longer possible because of World War II, so La Meri and Carreras settled in New York City. There, she established a school, the Ethnologic Dance Center, and dance companies. She continued performing in New York and on tour in the United States, and, in addition to teaching and concert work, created original choreographies using techniques such as those of India and Spain. In 1960, she moved to Cape Cod, Massachusetts, where she continued her work until 1984, when she returned to San Antonio. In addition to her practical work in dance, La Meri also published writings that set forth her conceptions, understandings, goals and methodologies. This book is both a biography of La Meri and an analysis of the significance of her theory and practice, with attention to her own performance, choreography, writings, and teaching.

The Modern Republican Party in Florida chronicles the emergence of the modern Republican Party in Florida. It provides the historic political foundation for the modern political era in Florida; it identifies the key elements of Republican Party organizations and structures that became the foundation for the current Republican network; and it contrasts the current political environment to the one-party era of the Democratic Pork Chop Gang. The narrative of the book describes the successes in the state-wide campaigns for governor and for positions on the Florida Cabinet. It provides an overview of the role of both Florida Republicans in national, presidential politics and Floridians serving in the United States House and Senate. It describes the decennial redistricting struggles and other obstacles that Republicans overcame as they became the majority in both Houses of the state Legislature, and it discusses the opportunities for women and minorities that accompanied this Republican emergence. Within the narrative are descriptions of the changes in state government made by Republicans or with their bipartisan cooperation. The book also provides an overview of the Republican influence on the state policies for public education and school choice; criminal justice and prison reform; taxation and business incentives; and consumer protection and environment preservation, including the protection of the Florida Everglades. The book identifies the officeholders, volunteers, and party officials who contributed to, and became part of, the Republican network. It also discusses the ever-changing elements of the Florida political arena, which includes voters with no party affiliation, soft money committees, and independent campaign consultants.

NASA and the Long Civil Rights Movement addresses the role/relationship of NASA and the Apollo program to the “long” civil rights movement in, particularly but not limited to, the Deep South (Huntsville, Florida, Houston, Mississippi, and New Orleans) and identifies the impact of NASA on the movement and the experiences of those who were directly affected by the space program and the impact of the movement on NASA’s development during the Cold War.

During the Jim Crow era, Florida’s public health nurses, mostly white and a few black women, tackled the state’s public health issues born of race, climate, geography, and poverty. These pioneering professional women were often the only ones available to deliver current health improvement information into the homes of people who were out of the reach of modern medical care. From Florida’s Panhandle to the Everglades and on to the Keys, they faced a number of challenges to reach both white and African American people in rural communities. Like the nurses in other states of the South and the North, they drew strength from their professional identity, but in confronting Florida’s unique challenges, their determination to save lives set them apart as they battled the state’s daunting environmental and cultural obstacles. They found innovative ways to build a bridge between the communities they served and public health policies, both state and federal, that addressed the threats of infection and the high infant and maternal mortality levels. Competing cultural constructions of health shaped their groundbreaking efforts to reach and serve underprivileged members of each race, whether to prevent illness and disease or to improve childbirth and general wellbeing.