History of Florida: The Making of the United States

The History of Florida: The Making of the United States (1513-2025)

From Ponce de León's 1513 landing to Florida's emergence as America's crucial battleground state in 2025, this authoritative account reveals how a once-peripheral territory became central to understanding the American experience.

Drawing on extensive primary sources from Spanish colonial archives (1565-1821), Civil War correspondence (1861-1865), and NASA documents (1958-1972), this meticulously researched volume traces Florida's transformation from Spanish colony to international gateway. Readers will encounter the Seminole Wars (1817-1858), witness Henry Flagler's railroad revolution (1885-1912), and understand how Walt Disney's 1971 Orlando vision forever altered American entertainment.

Florida's story unfolds through pivotal moments - the devastating 1928 Okeechobee Hurricane that killed thousands, Cuban refugees arriving after Castro's 1959 revolution, and the contested 2000 presidential election decided by just 537 votes. This comprehensive account examines how environmental challenges, demographic shifts, and economic forces created a state that mirrors America's greatest triumphs and most profound contradictions.

More than a regional history, this book presents Florida as America in microcosm - where Spanish, British, African, Caribbean and Northern influences blended to create a unique cultural laboratory. From the Everglades' drainage to Cape Canaveral's space launches, from Miami's Cuban exiles to The Villages' retirement communities, Florida exemplifies the nation's ongoing struggle to balance development with sustainability, diversity with unity, and opportunity with equity.

Essential reading for anyone seeking to understand how America's past shapes its present and future through the lens of its most dynamic and consequential state.