UPF books received lots of praise in the last few months! Take a look at some of the highlights featured below:
John Capouya’s book, Florida Soul: From Ray Charles to KC and the Sunshine Band, has continued to receive positive attention in the past few months. According to Publishers Weekly, Florida Soul is “entertaining and colorful . . . Assures that the Sunshine State gets its due alongside the musical hubs of Detroit, Memphis, and New Orleans.” Florida Weekly writes, “As Mr. Capouya brings the epoch, the genre and its creative music-makers to life, he shapes eloquent personality portraits that bring us inside the lives and minds of dozens of individuals we would not otherwise get to know,” and the Tampa Bay Times says Capouya “looks at the music not only as entertainment but as an expression of the culture and history that surrounded it.” Soul Express called Florida Soul “a fluent, well-written book filled with facts and a valuable source of information for classic soul music fans.”
When Science Sheds Light on History: Forensic Science and Anthropology by Philipe Charlier with David Alliot and translated by Isabelle Ruben was also reviewed in Publishers Weekly. According to the review, “Charlier, a French forensic medical examiner and specialist in ancient human remains, brings together summaries of his case studies—which include bones and bodies taken from prehistoric caves, charnel houses, royal tombs, and communal burials—to demonstrate what such remains can tell researchers. . . . Charlier delves into historical mysteries: for instance, bottles of wine said to contain the ashes of Joan of Arc instead turn out to hold remnants of burned Egyptian mummies. The book is full of similarly fascinating bits of trivia.”
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Jared S. Buss’s Willy Ley: Prophet of the Space Age also received several noteworthy reviews. According to Nature, “In Jared Buss’s nuanced biography, the German-born rocket expert emerges as a spirited science educator whose promotion of space exploration paved the way for NASA’s triumphs.” And Space Review writes that Buss’s book “puts Ley’s career into a bigger picture of changing perspectives about science and society.”
Here are even more great reviews:
by Thomas Graham
“This totally engaging, compact treatment of early U.S. film history is packed with information and a lot of fun.”—Florida Weekly
River and Road: Fort Myers Architecture from Craftsman to Modern
by Jared Beck and Pamela Miner
“Within the book’s 196 pages are homes built in nearly every style prevalent from 1900 until today, including Craftsman, Revival, Mediterranean and Midcentury Modern.”—Architects and Artisans
Backcountry Trails of Florida: A Guide to Hiking Florida’s Water Management Districts
by Terri Mashour
“Includes hiking tips and tricks, such as the perfect hiking season in Florida, and plans to consider before hiking.”—IFAS Blog
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Voices of Civil Rights Lawyers: Reflections from the Deep South, 1964–1980
edited by Kent Spriggs
“Equal parts stunning, eye-opening, overwhelming, and, ultimately, very necessary to read and comprehend. . . . Essential.”—Choice
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The Final Mission: Preserving NASA’s Apollo Sites
by Lisa Westwood, Beth Laura O’Leary, and Milford Wayne Donaldson
“By highlighting the Apollo program and the breadth of sites involved in developing America’s space capabilities up through the moon landings, the authors have demonstrated that the material culture of federal programs in particular should be evaluated within a far broader scope than is normally practiced.”—H-Net Reviews
Zephaniah Kingsley Jr. and the Atlantic World: Slave Trader, Plantation Owner, Emancipator
by Daniel L. Schafer
“A deeply researched biography of a truly exceptional but complex man whose life both reflected and helped to redefine the changing Atlantic worlds that he occupied.”—The Historian
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Florida’s Minority Trailblazers: The Men and Women Who Changed the Face of Florida Government
by Susan A. MacManus
“A vibrant in-depth look at the men and women of color who changed the face of Florida government from the 1960s to the present. . . . [Florida’s Minority Trailblazers] provides cutting-edge scholarship and the most complete treatment of the topic ever written.”—Florida Historical Quarterly
Mythic Frontiers: Remembering, Forgetting, and Profiting with Cultural Heritage Tourism
by Daniel R. Maher
“Contributes meaningfully to the ongoing discussion of how Americans display and consume their complicated past.”—Journal of Southern History
“Drops the ‘protective cloak of heritage’ from the thousands of historical sites that profit from celebrating American manifest destiny. . . . From start to finish, Maher pairs the frontier complex and reality in ways that move beyond myth busting and instead ties both to changes in national discourse and the development of the tourist economy in the West.”—American Indian Quarterly
“A fascinating and finely detailed examination of the construction and perpetuation of . . . the “frontier complex” at the Fort Smith, Arkansas historic site.”—Western Historical Quarterly
The Florida Bookshelf 