Bøker av Luis Martinez-Fernandez

When the World Turned Upside Down is a collection of 66 essays and opinion columns written between 2019 and 2022, a period of momentous¿some unimaginable¿developments in the United States and across the world. This book stands at the intersection of opinion journalism, history, and chronicling offering a dialogue between past and present (or present and past). They are, to use the often-quoted phrase, first drafts of history.Over the past five years, the world has witnessed several "unimaginables" about which the author felt compelled to write. Some of the book¿s essays identify, analyze, and connect parallels between the U.S. Antebellum and Civil War and the contemporary increasingly polarized context that reached an explosive peak during the 2020 elections and the violent attack on the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021.Shrouded in a cloud of unprecedented global pestilence, the world has witnessed dramatic political and geopolitical change, mostly for the worse: China, Russia, Hungary, Belarus, Myanmar, Cuba, even Puerto Rico. Essays in this book discuss these transformations from a historical perspective as well as mass popular resistance, in places like Cuba, where they seemed unimaginable.The book¿s final section, "Not Boring at All: Globalization and World Politics," explores the global ramifications of the COVID-19 pandemic, geopolitical rearrangements related to Chinäs meteoric ascendance as a world power, Russiäs militaristic expansionism, and related topics. "In When the World Turned Upside Down, Luis Martínez-Fernández demonstrates that he is not ¿merely¿ an acclaimed historian, but an engaging, sharp-witted social commentator. This excellent collection of columns, written during and about what Martínez-Fernández rightly terms ¿the unimaginable events of 2019-2022,¿ is dazzling for his easy, readable blend of history, sociology, popular culture, politics and more."¿Jeff Robbins, Columnist, Boston Herald and Creators Syndicate "Martínez-Fernández¿s book reads like a series of missives from the front, capturing the drama of unfolding, often unpredictable, events. The author is a master story-weaver, drawing from the warp and weft of our national and global histories to reveal patterns in today¿s events."¿Suzette Martinez Standring, Author of The Art of Column Writing "Professor Martínez-Fernández fuses the perspective of a historian with a journalist¿s eye on wide-ranging contemporary events. The result is an exhilarating read and a broader understanding of today¿s world."¿George Breslauer, Professor and Executive Vice Chancellor and Provost Emeritus, UC Berkeley

Scholarly and popular attention tends to focus heavily on Cuba's recent history: its notoriety as the world's largest exporter of sugar and the Western hemisphere's first socialist nation. Key to the New World fills the gap in our knowledge of the island before 1700, examining Cuba's formative centuries in depth.

A social history of life in mid-19th-century Cuba as experienced by George Backhouse who served on the British Havana Mixed Commission for the Suppression of the Slave Trade. It details the Cuban slave trade and the interrelated contradictions within Cuba's economy, society and politics.

This is the first book in more than three decades to offer a complete and chronological history of revolutionary Cuba, including the years of rebellion that led to the revolution. Beginning with Batista's coup in 1952, which catalyzed the rebels, and bringing the reader to the present-day transformations initiated by Raul Castro, Luis Martinez-Fernandez provides a balanced interpretive synthesis of the major topics of contemporary Cuban history.Expertly weaving the myriad historic, social, and political forces that shaped the island nation during this period, Martinez-Fernandez examines the circumstances that allowed the revolution to consolidate in the early 1960s, the Soviet influence throughout the latter part of the Cold War, and the struggle to survive the catastrophic Special Period of the 1990s after the collapse of the U.S.S.R. He tackles the island's chronic dependence on sugar production, which started with the plantations centuries ago and continues to shape culture and society. He analyzes the revolutionary pendulum that continues to swing between idealism and pragmatism, focusing on its effects on the everyday lives of the Cuban people, and-bucking established trends in Cuban scholarship-Martinez-Fernandez systematically integrates the Cuban diaspora into the larger discourse of the revolution.Concise, well written, and accessible, this book is an indispensable survey of the history and themes of the socialist revolution that forever changed Cuba and the world.