Gary R. Mormino – författare

Florida is a story of astonishing growth, a state swelling from 500,000 residents at the outset of the 20th century to some 16 million at the end. As recently as mid-century, on the eve of Pearl Harbor, Florida was the smallest state in the South. At the dawn of the millennium, it is the fourth largest in the country, a megastate that was among those introducing new words into the American vernacular: space coast, climate control, growth management, retirement community, theme park, edge cities, shopping mall, boomburbs, beach renourishment, Interstate, and Internet. Land of Sunshine, State of Dreams attempts to understand the firestorm of change that erupted into modern Florida by examining the great social, cultural, and economic forces driving its transformation.

Gary Mormino ranges far and wide across the landscape and boundaries of a place that is at once America''s southernmost state and the northernmost outpost of the Caribbean. From the capital, Tallahassee--a day''s walk from the Georgia border--to Miami--a city distant but tantalizingly close to Cuba and Haiti--Mormino traces the themes of Florida''s transformation: the echoes of old Dixie and a vanishing Florida; land booms and tourist empires; revolutions in agriculture, technology, and demographics; the seductions of the beach and the dynamics of a graying population; and the enduring but changing meanings of a dreamstate. Beneath the iconography of popular culture is revealed a complex and complicated social framework that reflects a dizzying passage from New Spain to Old South, New South to Sunbelt.

Millard Fillmore Caldwell (1897–1984) was once considered one of the greatest Floridians of his generation. Yet today he is known for his inability to adjust to the racial progress of the modern world. In this biography, leading Florida historian Gary Mormino tackles the difficult question of how to remember yesterday’s heroes who are now known to have had serious flaws.

The last Florida governor born in the nineteenth century and the first to govern in the atomic age, Caldwell was beloved in his time for leading the state through the hard years of World War II. He was wildly successful in a political career that may never be matched, serving as governor, congressman, state legislator, and chief justice of the Florida Supreme Court. He passed important educational reform legislation. But his attitudes toward race and citizenship strike Americans today as embarrassing and shocking. He refused to address black leaders by their titles. He argued for segregated bomb shelters. And he accepted lynching as part of the southern way of life.

Mormino measures the contributions of Caldwell alongside his glaring faults, discussing his complicated role in shaping modern Florida. In the current debates surrounding public memorials and historical memory in the United States, Millard Fillmore Caldwell is a timely example of one man’s contested legacy.

Florida Book Awards, Gold Medal for Florida Nonfiction

Florida Historical Society Charlton Tebeau Book Award 

A leading Florida historian explores one of the state’s most consequential eras  

It was a time of stunning episodes of boom and bust, an era of extremes, a decade of historic changes that point to Florida’s future. In this book, eminent historian Gary Mormino illuminates early twenty-first-century Florida and its connections to some of the most significant events in contemporary American history.

Following Mormino’s milestone work Land of Sunshine, State of Dreams, which details the dynamic history of Florida from 1950 to 2000, Dreams in the New Century explores the state’s tumultuous next chapter, a period that included the Bush v. Gore election, 9/11, the housing bubble and Great Recession, and the election of Barack Obama. During these years the Elián González story engrossed the country, Tim Tebow rose to football fame, and Donald Trump became a Florida celebrity. From hurricanes to Ponzi schemes, red tides, climate change, the “Stand-Your-Ground” gun law, demographic diversity, and more, Florida offered nonstop news fodder that reflected its extraordinary internal trends and its importance in the nation.

As Mormino shows, Florida is a place of deep conflicts—North and South, liberal and conservative, newcomer and local, growth and conservation—with histories that can be traced back centuries. In 2000‒2010, Mormino argues, these tensions collided to produce a “Big Bang” that will continue to resonate in years to come. Mormino takes stock of this crucible of change and explains the social, cultural, and political intricacies of a state the world struggles to understand. Dreams in the New Century unravels Florida’s complicated recent history in a gripping, informative, and fascinating narrative.

Florida Book Awards, Gold Medal for Florida Nonfiction

Florida Historical Society Charlton Tebeau Book Award 

A leading Florida historian explores one of the state’s most consequential eras  

It was a time of stunning episodes of boom and bust, an era of extremes, a decade of historic changes that point to Florida’s future. In this book, eminent historian Gary Mormino illuminates early twenty-first-century Florida and its connections to some of the most significant events in contemporary American history.

Following Mormino’s milestone work Land of Sunshine, State of Dreams, which details the dynamic history of Florida from 1950 to 2000, Dreams in the New Century explores the state’s tumultuous next chapter, a period that included the Bush v. Gore election, 9/11, the housing bubble and Great Recession, and the election of Barack Obama. During these years the Elián González story engrossed the country, Tim Tebow rose to football fame, and Donald Trump became a Florida celebrity. From hurricanes to Ponzi schemes, red tides, climate change, the “Stand-Your-Ground” gun law, demographic diversity, and more, Florida offered nonstop news fodder that reflected its extraordinary internal trends and its importance in the nation.

As Mormino shows, Florida is a place of deep conflicts—North and South, liberal and conservative, newcomer and local, growth and conservation—with histories that can be traced back centuries. In 2000‒2010, Mormino argues, these tensions collided to produce a “Big Bang” that will continue to resonate in years to come. Mormino takes stock of this crucible of change and explains the social, cultural, and political intricacies of a state the world struggles to understand. Dreams in the New Century unravels Florida’s complicated recent history in a gripping, informative, and fascinating narrative.

Florida served as one of the great meeting grounds of the planet, a place where peoples from Indian America, Latin America, Africa, the Caribbean and Europe converged. This book features essays in both Spanish and English on the influence of the Spanish in Florida from the first explorers to the latest Hispanic migrations into Miami.