Finding Florida: The True History of the Sunshine State
*Starred Review* Allman’s engaging, eye-opening, and heavily researched history of Florida spans half a milllennium, from the myth of Ponce de León’s Fountain of Youth to the 2012 shooting of 17-year-old Trayvon Martin, and it is a fulsome cavalcade of would-be conquistadors, epically corrupt and racist politicans, and oligarch-wannabes. Allman argues that these individuals’ ideas about Florida were wildly wrong. Ponce was looking for gold in a state devoid of metals; even Presidents Jefferson, Monroe, and Madison schemed to control Florida only to learn that the place had no resources. Florida only consumes resources. “People were constantly ruining Florida; Florida ruined them right back,” he writes. The Seminole Wars, the Civil War, various massacres, Reconstruction, a second Reconstruction, Disney World, the Marielitos, voter suppression—it’s all here, and even Carl Hiaasen couldn’t make it up. This is history for the intelligent generalist, and Allman writes with style, passion, and real outrage at Florida’s odious political history. Readers will be struck by his conclusion that much of America—as Florida has long done—is abandoning verifiable facts for beliefs that are often utter nonsense. But, hey, it was sunny and 80 degrees in Florida today. --Thomas Gaughan