Customer Reviews

Florida: A Short History (Columbus Quincentenary Series)

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
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1 star:		(0)

 

 

This is a wonderful book on the overall history of Florida. Loaded with little known facts on nearly every page, Gannon does an excellent job on taking the reader from the very beginnings of Florida (and consequently American history) to the present day. To the point but with adequate detail, Gannon not only avoids boring the reader but makes Florida history entertaining. Highly recommended for anyone looking to get a grasp on the state of Florida and its history.

I think my title says it all.. I thought history books were supposed to be boring and for some reason I couldn't put this one down! I took a course on the history of Florida at FSU to fulfill some requirements, so I actually had to read several texts on Florida. This was the only one to truly keep my attention. It offers information to help you learn about Fl's history, but not too detailed of information to bore you with superfluous statistics.. it's easy to retain! And isn't that the REAL goal of taking collegiate courses??

Excellent introduction for any person that wants to have a good introduction to Florida history. Especially recommended for people who know nothing of this land before the malls, beachfront condominiums, and tourists arrived.

This is a brilliant book by a brilliant man (rank him up there with H. Belloc in my view. Check out "Cross in the Sand" as well). I recall sitting in Professor Gannon's class at the University of Florida way back, when I was just a wee lad, and just not wanting them to end. He was a wonderful lecturer. He made the history come alive. He was one of the great professors at the University of Florida. This is a great book on the history of my adopted state.

A book that matches up with it's title, it's a short history of Florida! It starts back in pre-Colombian dates and broadly (very broadly) covers the different nations that claimed parts of the state in it's history, the people, the agriculture, growth of population, cities, politics, etc. A good overview that would provide the casual reader many starting points for further investigation.