Made In Florida

Discover some of Florida’s most fascinating personalities in this entertaining kaleidoscope of interviews. Made in Florida showcases a colorful lineup of notable people who got their start in the state and who have helped make it the unique, diverse place it is today. Hear from Carl Hiaasen and Dave Barry about their weirdest writing inspirations. Discover why Shaquille O’Neal never complains. Find out what happens when Burt Reynolds goes to Costco. Listen to Theresa Manuel’s experiences as one of the first black women to compete in the Olympics. Learn about the lives of Seminole Tribe elder Louise Gopher, pop art painter Romero Britto, NASA senior executive JoAnn Morgan, circus daredevil Bello Nock, football coach Steve Spurrier, state CFO Alex Sink, and Muhammad Ali’s “fight doctor” Ferdie Pacheco. In addition to the widely celebrated, Art Levy introduces many unsung individuals. Meet innovative industrialists like “Chainsaw Al” and dedicated naturalists like “The Shark Lady.” Mingle with a legendary rancher, a civil rights historian, and a commercial fisherman. Marvel at an anticrime crusader, a space skydiver, and a snake-venom enthusiast. These and other stars—many of whom rarely give such extensive interviews—talk family and work, joys and worries, failures and triumphs, dislikes and desires. Levy has thoughtfully selected their words from ten years of conversations. Each person tells a different story of Florida from a perspective all their own. Read on and get ready to laugh and lament, to be surprised and inspired.

Once considered just an insect-ridden swampland, Florida is now a top destination for tourism, business, agriculture and innovation thanks to these 25 individuals. Florida is in many ways both the oldest and newest of the megastates. The ideas and actions of a colorful cast of characters - from beloved cultural icons to political heroes and even a socialist dictator - transformed the peninsula. A Barbados native rescued Florida's orange industry after the catastrophic 1835 freeze. Known as the "Grande Dame of the Everglades," Marjory Stoneman Douglas worked tirelessly to save the state's vast, incomparable wetlands from annihilation in the early twentieth century. In the mid-1800s, a Florida doctor developed a precursor to modern air conditioning. Join former U.S. senator George LeMieux and journalist Laura Mize as they profile and rank, according to impact, the 25 trailblazers who have changed the Sunshine State forever.

A wickedly smart, funny, and irresistibly off-kilter account of an improbable thousand-mile journey on foot into the heart of modern Florida, the state that Russell calls "America Concentrate." In the summer of 2016, Kent Russell--broke, at loose ends, hungry for adventure--set off to walk across Florida. Mythic, superficial, soaked in contradictions, maligned by cultural elites, segregated from the South, and literally vanishing into the sea, Florida (or, as he calls it: "America Concentrate") seemed to Russell to embody America's divided soul. The journey, with two friends intent on filming the ensuing mayhem, quickly reduces the trio to filthy drifters pushing a shopping cart of camera equipment. They get waylaid by a concerned citizen bearing a rifle; buy cocaine from an ex-wrestler; visit a spiritual medium. The narrative overflows with historical detail about how modern Florida came into being after World War II, and how it came to be a petri dish for life in a suddenly, increasingly diverse new land of minority-majority cities and of unrivaled ethnic and religious variety. Russell has taken it all in with his incomparably focused lens and delivered a book that is both an inspired travelogue and a profound rumination on the nation's soul--and his own. It is a book that is wildly vivid, encyclopedic, erudite, and ferociously irreverent--a deeply ambivalent love letter to his sprawling, brazenly varied home state.

AJ lives in Florida where it never, ever snows. He dreams of a day when he can build a snowman, or wear warm boots in the winter like other kids. AJ soon learns he can't say NEVER when it comes to weather. Just because he hasn't seen any, doesn't mean it never snows in Florida.

As if Ponce de León, who happened on the peninsula in 1513, returned today to demand a quick reckoning ("Tell me what happened after I was there, but leave out the boring parts!"), Michael Gannon recounts the longest recorded history of any state in the nation in twenty-seven brisk, fully illustrated chapters. From indigenous tribes who lived along spring-fed streams to environmentalists who labor to "Save Our Rivers," from the first conquistadors whose broad black ships astonished the natives to the 123,000 refugees whose unexpected immigration stunned South Floridians in 1980, the story of the state is as rich and distinctive as the story of America. And it’s older than most people think. As Gannon writes, "By the time the Pilgrims came ashore at Plymouth, St. Augustine was up for urban renewal. It was a town with fort, church, seminary, six-bed hospital, fish market, and about 120 shops and houses. Because La Florida stretched north from the Keys to Newfoundland and west to Texas, St. Augustine could claim to be the capital of much of what is now the United States." Gannon tells his fast-marching saga in chronological fashion. Starting with the wilderness of the ancient earth, he fills the landscape with Indians, colonists, pioneers, entrepreneurs, politicians, and the panorama of Florida today--"the broad superhighways that wind past horse farms, retirement communities, international airports, launch pads, futuristic attractions, and come to rest, finally, amidst the gleaming towers of Oz-like cities." This revised edition concludes with a look into the twenty-first century, including "in-migration," restoration of the Everglades, education, the work force, and the infamous 2000 presidential election.

Christopher Knowlton, author of Cattle Kingdom and former Fortune writer, takes an in-depth look at the spectacular Florida land boom of the 1920s and shows how it led directly to the Great Depression. The 1920s in Florida was a time of incredible excess, immense wealth, and precipitous collapse. The decade there produced the largest human migration in American history, far exceeding the settlement of the West, as millions flocked to the grand hotels and the new cities that rose rapidly from the teeming wetlands. The boom spawned a new subdivision civilization—and the most egregious large-scale assault on the environment in the name of “progress.” Nowhere was the glitz and froth of the Roaring Twenties more excessive than in Florida. Here was Vegas before there was a Vegas: gambling was condoned and so was drinking, since prohibition was not enforced. Tycoons, crooks, and celebrities arrived en masse to promote or exploit this new and dazzling American frontier in the sunshine. Yet, the import and deep impact of these historical events have never been explored thoroughly until now. In Bubble in the Sun Christopher Knowlton examines the grand artistic and entrepreneurial visions behind Coral Gables, Boca Raton, Miami Beach, and other storied sites, as well as the darker side of the frenzy. For while giant fortunes were being made and lost and the nightlife raged more raucously than anywhere else, the pure beauty of the Everglades suffered wanton ruination and the workers, mostly black, who built and maintained the boom, endured grievous abuses. Knowlton breathes dynamic life into the forces that made and wrecked Florida during the decade: the real estate moguls Carl Fisher, George Merrick, and Addison Mizner, and the once-in-a-century hurricane whose aftermath triggered the stock market crash. This essential account is a revelatory—and riveting—history of an era that still affects our country today.