When the World Turned Upside Down

Dr. Luis Martínez-Fernández is a historian, university professor, nationally syndicated columnist, and public speaker whose fields of expertise include Latin America; the Caribbean; education; world cultures; and Latino/Hispanic politics, culture, and society.

Foreword – Acknowledgments – Abbreviations – Introduction – Trump, Fake News, and Why History Matters More Than Ever – "All History Is Contemporary": A 20/ 20 Look at the Antebellum and Civil War – Polarization, Nationalism, and Secessionism (Past and Present) – Race and Politics: Contemporary Echoes of the U.S. Antebellum – How Do Lincoln, Kennedy, Obama, and Trump Compare? – I Cannot Believe the Things I Have Been Reading in the Pre- election Media – Statehood for Washington, D.C., and Puerto Rico in Historical Perspective – The 2020 U.S. Census: Historical Precedents and What Censuses Tell Us about Populations and Power, Past and Present – Is That a Constitution in Your Pocket? – Democratic Socialism in the United States: Does Bernie Sanders Need Rebranding? – Do the Riots in Minneapolis Forbode Greater Civil Unrest? – Pandemic, Pandemonium, and the November 2020 Elections – June 14– June 20, 2020: Trump’s Worst Week to Date? – Election- Eve Carpet Bombings, Scarier- Than- Usual Halloween Costumes, and Other Things We May See Before and on Election Day 2020 – Fifty- Five Hours Binge- Watching the Never- Before- Seen and the Unimaginable (America, January 4–6, 2021) – Happy 2021 Valentine’s Day, Mr. Trump – Tucker and the Talking Heads: Anatomy of a Fox News Show Built on Deceit and Demagoguery –"Epic," "Heroic," "Patriots": Words We Have Abused into Meaninglessness – The Diplomacy of Haggling – "Ask Them to Spell Their Names" and Other Real- Life Blunders in Transcultural Communications – Lost in Cultural Translation – The Summer Solstice, Kupalo/ Kupala and St. John the Baptist – The Ajiaco, the Cuban Sandwich, and Other Cuban/ Caribbean Foods for Thought – Barbados: The Caribbean’s First Slavery- and- Sugar Plantation Complex and World’s Newest Republic – Puerto Rico: The Holiday Island with the Longest Christmas Season – A Russian Soldier Put a Bullet Through the Poet’s Head – The Schoolboy’s Old, Red English Atlas – My Offshore Library: University of Puerto Rico, 1978–1985 – The Seven Deadly Sins of the Modern American University – Diverse Pathways in Education and Life: Seven Real- Life Stories – The Epidemic That Will Outlive the COVID-19 Pandemic, the Spiraling Mental Health Crisis Among Our College Students –An Almost Dangerous Occupation? Teaching History in Florida’s Public Schools and State Universities – Rethinking Columbus and 1492 in and out of the Classroom – Would You Like to Have Coffee with the Author? – I Saw My Entire Life Flash Before My Eyes – Hispanic? Latino? Latinx? What’s Nextx? – Hispanic Heritage Month 2020: Some Advice from the Trenches – Latinos in Florida’s 2020 Election – A Second Opinion: The Democratic Party Needs a Battery of Tests and Biopsies to Figure Out Why Its Support among Latino Voters Slipped in 2020 – Crisis in Paradise – Puerto Rico’s Democratic Revolt Result of Decades of Mounting Tectonic Pressure – Puerto Rico, Its Expanding Diaspora and the 2020 Elections – The 20 Plagues of Contemporary Puerto Rico – Can’t We Just Sell Multi- Plagued Puerto Rico and Solve the Political Status of the World’s Oldest Colony? – Should We Get Married or Continue Living Together? Puerto Rico’s Never- Ending Status Question – "My Good Friend Roosevelt": Fidel Castro to FDR, November 6, 1940 – Unsolicited Advice for Bernie Sanders: Stay Away from the Cuba Trap – "Are We Not Your Fellow Artists?": The Solitude of Cuba’s San Isidro Movement – A Tale of Two Other Cities: Rising Authoritarianism out of Washington, D.C., and Havana – An Honest Response to a Colleague’s Views on Cuba and U.S. Policy Toward That "Immiserated" Island – The Shattered Mirror: Democracy and Anti- Democracy on Both Sides of the Florida Straits, 2021 – Sixtieth Anniversary of the Cuban Missile Crisis Finds Communist Island in Deepest Crisis Ever – What History Tells Us About COVID-19’s Future Impact – 1989, History’s Stubborn Twists and the Commencement Speaker Who Warned Us to Remain Vigilant – The Right, the Left and Everything at the Other End – The Strange Etymologies of "the Left," "Liberals," and "Progressives" – Wars and Rumors of Wars in Times of TikTok: Is America Ready for a Major Conflagration? – Olympic Ceremonies: Spectacles of National Branding and Global Projection – Olympic Games, Truces, and Wars (Sochi, 2014; Beijing, 2022) – History’s Ghosts Trample Roughshod over Ukraine – We Know How Things Start But Not How They Are Going to End: The Russian Invasion of Ukraine – Queen Elizabeth II’s Passing and the U.S. Media: Reflections of a Lowercase "r" Republican – If History Is of Any Value: March 2020, Revisited – Putin’s Dirty War, Geopolitical Adjustments and Prospects for Future Wars – Toward a Second American Civil War? – The Global Authoritarian Wave, Democratic Countercurrents and Dangerous Crosscurrents – Epilogue: Deadlines, Periodization and This Book’s Title – Index – About the Author.

"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