Jack E. Davis, author of AN EVERGLADES PROVIDENCE, has just been announced as the winner of the Gold Medial in nonfiction for 2009 from the Florida Book Awards.Details about the award and ceremonies to recognize award recipients in Tallahassee (March 24) and Orlando (April 8) can be found on the official 2009 Florida Book Awards press release.
Davis's book, part of the press series on Environmental History and the American South, charts the life of pioneering conservationist Marjory Stoneman Douglas and puts her efforts within the framework of the developing environmental movement in the United States. In the St. Petersburg Times, Jeff Klinkenberg said of the book, "Davis never met Douglas, but he has given her the serious biography she deserves, capturing her cantankerous personality and brilliant mind, while at the same time providing the historical context necessary to fully appreciate her amazing life. It's a tour de force."
Two other titles in the Environmental History and the American South series have been recognized with significant awards this month:Shepard Krech III's SPIRITS OF THE AIR was given the James Mooney Award by the Southern Anthropological Society, which honors the best new book on the South or Southerners from an anthropological perspective.
Christine Keiner's THE OYSTER QUESTION has received honorable mention from the Organization of American Historians Frederick Jackson Turner Award committee, which recognizes the best first book on a significant phase of American history.
