Winner of the Independent Publisher Book Awards Silver Medal for Best Regional Nonfiction in the Southwest The story of how Florida became entwined with Americans’ 20th-century hopes, dreams, and expectations is also a tale of mass delusion, real estate collapses, and catastrophic hurricanes. The Fantasy of Florida hones in on the experiences of William Jennings Bryan and Edwin Menninger, the two men who shaped the image of Florida that we know today and who sold that image as America’s paradise. The cast of characters also includes the Marx Brothers, Thomas Edison, Al Capone, and Mark Twain. A tale of a colorful and tragicomic era during which the allure and illusion of the American Dream was on full display—a Jazz Age period when Americans started chasing what F. Scott Fitzgerald called “the orgiastic future”—the book reveals how the recent economic collapse in Florida is eerily similar to events that happened there between 1925 and 1928. What sets the mid-1920s’ Florida land boom apart from more recent booms-and-busts, however, is that this was the first modern boom, the first time that emerging new technologies, mass communications and modern advertising techniques were used to sell the nation on the notion that prosperity and happiness are simply there for the taking. Florida’s image as a place where the rules of everyday life don’t apply and winners go to play was formed during this dawn of the age of consumerism when Americans wanted to have fun and make lots of money, and millions of them thought Florida was the perfect place to do that.

Described by explorer Henry Hudson's first mate in 1609 as "a pleasant land to see," this high point of the eastern seaboard has witnessed the full sweep of American history from its steep wooded slopes. From the permanent settlements of the Navesink band of Lenape Indians through the passing of the Dutch and the founding of the second English town in New Jersey here in 1667, Atlantic Highlands became a prime Victorian resort during the Golden Age of the Jersey Shore. Later, as the axis of an extensive bootlegging operation during Prohibition with ties to big-city mobsters, the town's heritage grew as flamboyant as it was rich.

* Accessible to both lay readers and decision-makers * These stories are as exciting, if even more exciting, than even the most fast-paced movie adventure. Hackers strike quickly and with disastrous results. The story and post-mortems are fascinating * Homes are becoming increasingly wired and, thanks to Wi-Fi, unwired. What are the associated risks of fast Internet? * Technology is everywhere. People who subvert and damage technology will soon by enemy #1. * The author is an internationally recognized authority on computer security

Andrew J. Dunar and Dennis McBride skillfully interweave eyewitness accounts of the building of Hoover Dam. These stories create the richest existing portrait of the building of Hoover Dam and its tremendous effect on the lives of those involved in its creation: the gritty, sometimes grisly realities of living in cardboard boxes and tents during several of the hottest Southern Nevada summers on record; the fearsome carbon monoxide deaths of tunnel builders who, it was claimed, had died of "pneumonia"; the uproarious life of nearby Las Vegas versus the tightly controlled existence of the workers in the built-overnight confines of Boulder City; and of course the astounding accomplishment of building the Dam itself and completing the task not only early but under budget!