When the World Turned Upside Down is a collection of 66 essays and opinion columns written between 2019 and 2022, a period of momentoussome unimaginabledevelopments 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 books 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 books final section, "Not Boring at All: Globalization and World Politics," explores the global ramifications of the COVID-19 pandemic, geopolitical rearrangements related to Chinas meteoric ascendance as a world power, Russias 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 "MartínezFernándezs book reads like a series of missives from the front, capturing the drama of unfolding, often unpredictable, events. The author is a master storyweaver, drawing from the warp and weft of our national and global histories to reveal patterns in todays events." Suzette Martinez Standring, Author of The Art of Column Writing "Professor Martínez-Fernández fuses the perspective of a historian with a journalists eye on wide-ranging contemporary events. The result is an exhilarating read and a broader understanding of todays world." George Breslauer, Professor and Executive Vice Chancellor and Provost Emeritus, UC Berkeley

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. He is Pegasus Professor of History at the University of Central Florida and an award-winning columnist with Creators Syndicate. Born in Havana, Cuba, and raised in Lima, Peru, and San Juan, Puerto Rico, he holds B.A. and M.A. degrees in history from the University of Puerto Rico and a Ph.D. in history from Duke University. His books include Fighting Slavery in the Caribbean; Revolutionary Cuba: A History, widely acclaimed as the most comprehensive and systematic study on the subject ever written, and Key to the New World: A History of Early Colonial Cuba, winner of the 2018 Florida Book Awards bronze medal for nonfiction and the 2019 International Latino Book Awards gold medal in history.