From Yellow Dog Democrats to Red State Republicans: Florida and Its Politics since 1940.

Octavo, gold cloth and red boards (hardcover), x, 262 pp. Fine in a Fine dust jacket. From dust jacket: Florida is the whole deal, the real deal, a big deal. These were the words of Dan Rather, CBS television news anchor, on election night in 2000. With one pronouncement Florida shot into the political spotlight, catching both politicians and pundits unaware. But this tidal shift in the nation's politics came as little surprise to some, including historian David Colburn. In From Yellow Dog Democrats to Red State Republicans, Colburn reveals how Florida gradually abandoned the traditions of race and personality that linked it to the Democratic party and how the Republicans emerged as the dominant party in the state. Likely to raise hackles on both sides of the aisle, this dynamic history of modern Florida argues that the Sunshine State has become the political and demographic future of the nation. Colburn focuses on the population growth and chaotic gubernatorial politics that have rocked the state since the 1940s, when it was a sleepy impoverished southern outpost. At the center of the story are the fascinating governors who played pivotal roles in every postwar develpment from Cracker to Sun Belt politcs, from segreation to integration, from boosterism and modernization to economic and environmental crises. In the twenty-first century, he says, Florida is a dynamic highly partisan, largely conservative state at the cultural, social, and economic intersection of the Western Hemisphere. As the story of one of the most influential states in the nation, From Yellow Dog Democrats to REd State Republicans redefines Florida politcs. Florida, Floridiana, Florida History, Political Science, Government, American History, U. S. History, United States History, U.S.-iana, Americana. yslic.…