The shores of the Gulf Coast have grown crowded with resorts since the Second World War, but historians, until now, have lagged in studying this development. Harvey Jackson combs the beaches of Alabama and the Florida Panhandle to recount not only the history of the coast but also of the Deep South as the region became more urban and prosperous. The havens built by and for white southerners represent a regional transformation. These vacationers “found a way of life, a culture and context, much like the one they left back home—segregated (where blacks existed at all), small town, provincial, self-centered, and unassuming” (2).