About this book:

**Miami: A History** takes you on a sweeping, riveting journey through one of America's most improbable cities—a place that, by all logic, should never have existed at all. Born from fewer than a hundred settlers on a narrow strip of land between swamp and sea, repeatedly battered by hurricanes, economic collapse, and waves of social upheaval, Miami refuses to die. It reinvents itself again and again, and that relentless transformation is exactly what makes its story unlike any other in the United States.

From the ancient Tequesta people who thrived along Biscayne Bay thousands of years before European contact, through the railroad boom, the devastating 1926 hurricane, the Cuban Revolution, the drug wars of the 1980s, and the glittering rise of Wynwood and Brickell, this book captures every chapter with both scholarly depth and narrative drama. It reveals how Miami became a battleground for civil rights, a gateway for Latin America, a laboratory of race and identity, and a cultural powerhouse whose art, music, and cuisine now influence the entire world.

Rich with the voices of the people who lived it—from Spanish explorers and Seminole warriors to refugees crossing the Florida Straits—*Miami: A History* is not just the story of one extraordinary city. It is the story of ambition itself, of what happens when human determination collides with an unforgiving natural world, and of the future that American cities are racing toward. If you want to understand where America is headed, start by understanding Miami.