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When the World Turned Upside Down

Politics, Culture, and the Unimaginable Events of 2019-2022

by Luis Martínez-Fernández (Author)
©2023 Edited Collection XX, 420 Pages

Summary

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 China’s meteoric ascendance as a world power, Russia’s 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

Table Of Contents

  • Cover
  • Title
  • Copyright
  • About the author
  • About the book
  • This eBook can be cited
  • Dedication
  • FM Epigraph
  • Table of Contents
  • Foreword
  • Acknowledgments
  • Abbreviations
  • Introduction
  • Section I American History, Past, Present (Future?)
  • Introduction
  • 1 Trump, Fake News, and Why History Matters More Than Ever
  • 2 “All History Is Contemporary”: A 20/20 Look at the Antebellum and Civil War
  • 3 Polarization, Nationalism, and Secessionism (Past and Present)
  • 4 Race and Politics: Contemporary Echoes of the U.S. Antebellum
  • 5 How Do Lincoln, Kennedy, Obama, and Trump Compare?
  • 6 I Cannot Believe the Things I Have Been Reading in the Pre-election Media
  • 7 Statehood for Washington, D.C., and Puerto Rico in Historical Perspective
  • 8 The 2020 U.S. Census: Historical Precedents and What Censuses Tell Us about Populations and Power, Past and Present
  • 9 Is That a Constitution in Your Pocket?
  • Section II Rough Drafts of History: U.S. Society and Politics, 2019–2022
  • Introduction
  • 10 Democratic Socialism in the United States: Does Bernie Sanders Need Rebranding?
  • 11 Do the Riots in Minneapolis Forbode Greater Civil Unrest?
  • 12 Pandemic, Pandemonium, and the November 2020 Elections
  • 13 June 14–June 20, 2020: Trump’s Worst Week to Date?
  • 14 Election-Eve Carpet Bombings, Scarier-Than-Usual Halloween Costumes, and Other Things We May See Before and on Election Day 2020
  • 15 Fifty-Five Hours Binge-Watching the Never-Before-Seen and the Unimaginable (America, January 4–6, 2021)
  • 16 Happy 2021 Valentine’s Day, Mr. Trump
  • 17 Tucker and the Talking Heads: Anatomy of a Fox News Show Built on Deceit and Demagoguery
  • Section III Culture Is the History That We Inherit
  • Introduction
  • 18 “Epic,” “Heroic,” “Patriots”: Words We Have Abused into Meaninglessness
  • 19 The Diplomacy of Haggling
  • 20 “Ask Them to Spell Their Names” and Other Real-Life Blunders in Transcultural Communications
  • 21 Lost in Cultural Translation
  • 22 The Summer Solstice, Kupalo/Kupala and St. John the Baptist
  • 23 The Ajiaco, the Cuban Sandwich, and Other Cuban/Caribbean Foods for Thought
  • 24 Barbados: The Caribbean’s First Slavery-and-Sugar Plantation Complex and World’s Newest Republic
  • 25 Puerto Rico: The Holiday Island with the Longest Christmas Season
  • 26 A Russian Soldier Put a Bullet Through the Poet’s Head
  • Section IV I Never Left the Classroom: Reflections on Education, Books and Reading
  • Introduction
  • 27 The Schoolboy’s Old, Red English Atlas
  • 28 My Offshore Library: University of Puerto Rico, 1978–1985
  • 29 The Seven Deadly Sins of the Modern American University
  • 30 Diverse Pathways in Education and Life: Seven Real-Life Stories
  • 31 The Epidemic That Will Outlive the COVID-19 Pandemic, the Spiraling Mental Health Crisis Among Our College Students
  • 32 An Almost Dangerous Occupation? Teaching History in Florida’s Public Schools and State Universities
  • 33 Rethinking Columbus and 1492 in and out of the Classroom
  • 34 Would You Like to Have Coffee with the Author?
  • 35 I Saw My Entire Life Flash Before My Eyes
  • Section V ¡Despierta Latino!
  • Introduction
  • 36 Hispanic? Latino? Latinx? What’s Nextx?
  • 37 Hispanic Heritage Month 2020: Some Advice from the Trenches
  • 38 Latinos in Florida’s 2020 Election
  • 39 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
  • Section VI Puerto Rico, the World’s Oldest Colony
  • Introduction
  • 40 Crisis in Paradise
  • 41 Puerto Rico’s Democratic Revolt Result of Decades of Mounting Tectonic Pressure
  • 42 Puerto Rico, Its Expanding Diaspora and the 2020 Elections
  • 43 The 20 Plagues of Contemporary Puerto Rico
  • 44 Can’t We Just Sell Multi-Plagued Puerto Rico and Solve the Political Status of the World’s Oldest Colony?
  • 45 Should We Get Married or Continue Living Together? Puerto Rico’s Never-Ending Status Question
  • Section VII Exercises in Cuban Historiographical Maroonage
  • Introduction
  • 46 “My Good Friend Roosevelt”: Fidel Castro to FDR, November 6, 1940
  • 47 Unsolicited Advice for Bernie Sanders: Stay Away from the Cuba Trap
  • 48 “Are We Not Your Fellow Artists?”: The Solitude of Cuba’s San Isidro Movement
  • 49 A Tale of Two Other Cities: Rising Authoritarianism out of Washington, D.C., and Havana
  • 50 An Honest Response to a Colleague’s Views on Cuba and U.S. Policy Toward That “Immiserated” Island
  • 51 The Shattered Mirror: Democracy and Anti-Democracy on Both Sides of the Florida Straits, 2021
  • 52 Sixtieth Anniversary of the Cuban Missile Crisis Finds Communist Island in Deepest Crisis Ever
  • Section VIII Not Boring at All: Globalization and World Affairs
  • Introduction
  • 53 What History Tells Us About COVID-19’s Future Impact
  • 54 1989, History’s Stubborn Twists and the Commencement Speaker Who Warned Us to Remain Vigilant
  • 55 The Right, the Left and Everything at the Other End
  • 56 The Strange Etymologies of “the Left,” “Liberals,” and “Progressives”
  • 57 Wars and Rumors of Wars in Times of TikTok: Is America Ready for a Major Conflagration?
  • 58 Olympic Ceremonies: Spectacles of National Branding and Global Projection
  • 59 Olympic Games, Truces, and Wars (Sochi, 2014; Beijing, 2022)
  • 60 History’s Ghosts Trample Roughshod over Ukraine
  • 61 We Know How Things Start But Not How They Are Going to End: The Russian Invasion of Ukraine
  • 62 Queen Elizabeth II’s Passing and the U.S. Media: Reflections of a Lowercase “r” Republican
  • Section IX The Oracle of History
  • Introduction
  • 63 If History Is of Any Value: March 2020, Revisited
  • 64 Putin’s Dirty War, Geopolitical Adjustments and Prospects for Future Wars
  • 65 Toward a Second American Civil War?
  • 66 The Global Authoritarian Wave, Democratic Countercurrents and Dangerous Crosscurrents
  • Epilogue: Deadlines, Periodization and This Book’s Title
  • Index
  • About the Author

←iii | iv→

Library of Congress Cataloging- in-Publication Control Number: 2022046978

Bibliographic information published by Die Deutsche Nationalbibliothek.
Die Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the “Deutsche
Nationalbibliografie”; detailed bibliographic data are available
on the Internet at
http://dnb.d-nb.de/.

ISBN 978-1-4331-9614-0 (paperback)

© 2023 Peter Lang Publishing, Inc., New York

All rights reserved.

About the author

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.

About the book

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 China’s meteoric ascendance as a world power, Russia’s 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 Martinez-Fernandez 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

This eBook can be cited

This edition of the eBook can be cited. To enable this we have marked the start and end of a page. In cases where a word straddles a page break, the marker is placed inside the word at exactly the same position as in the physical book. This means that occasionally a word might be bifurcated by this marker.

←vii | viii→ ←viii | ix→

Contents

Foreword

Acknowledgments

Abbreviations

Introduction

Section IAmerican History, Past, Present (Future?)

Introduction

1 Trump, Fake News, and Why History Matters More Than Ever

2 “All History Is Contemporary”: A 20/20 Look at the Antebellum and Civil War

3 Polarization, Nationalism, and Secessionism (Past and Present)

4 Race and Politics: Contemporary Echoes of the U.S. Antebellum

5 How Do Lincoln, Kennedy, Obama, and Trump Compare?

←ix | x→

6 I Cannot Believe the Things I Have Been Reading in the Pre-election Media

7 Statehood for Washington, D.C., and Puerto Rico in Historical Perspective

8 The 2020 U.S. Census: Historical Precedents and What Censuses Tell Us about Populations and Power, Past and Present

9 Is That a Constitution in Your Pocket?

Section IIRough Drafts of History: U.S. Society and Politics, 2019–2022

Introduction

10 Democratic Socialism in the United States: Does Bernie Sanders Need Rebranding?

11 Do the Riots in Minneapolis Forbode Greater Civil Unrest?

12 Pandemic, Pandemonium, and the November 2020 Elections

13 June 14–June 20, 2020: Trump’s Worst Week to Date?

14 Election-Eve Carpet Bombings, Scarier-Than-Usual Halloween Costumes, and Other Things We May See Before and on Election Day 2020

15 Fifty-Five Hours Binge-Watching the Never-Before-Seen and the Unimaginable (America, January 4–6, 2021)

16 Happy 2021 Valentine’s Day, Mr. Trump

17 Tucker and the Talking Heads: Anatomy of a Fox News Show Built on Deceit and Demagoguery

Section IIICulture Is the History That We Inherit

←x | xi→

Introduction

18 “Epic,” “Heroic,” “Patriots”: Words We Have Abused into Meaninglessness

19 The Diplomacy of Haggling

20 “Ask Them to Spell Their Names” and Other Real-Life Blunders in Transcultural Communications

21 Lost in Cultural Translation

22 The Summer Solstice, Kupalo/Kupala and St. John the Baptist

23 The Ajiaco, the Cuban Sandwich, and Other Cuban/Caribbean Foods for Thought

24 Barbados: The Caribbean’s First Slavery-and-Sugar Plantation Complex and World’s Newest Republic

25 Puerto Rico: The Holiday Island with the Longest Christmas Season

26 A Russian Soldier Put a Bullet Through the Poet’s Head

Section IVI Never Left the Classroom: Reflections on Education, Books and Reading

Introduction

27 The Schoolboy’s Old, Red English Atlas

28 My Offshore Library: University of Puerto Rico, 1978–1985

29 The Seven Deadly Sins of the Modern American University

30 Diverse Pathways in Education and Life: Seven Real-Life Stories

31 The Epidemic That Will Outlive the COVID-19 Pandemic, the Spiraling Mental Health Crisis Among Our College Students

←xi | xii→

32 An Almost Dangerous Occupation? Teaching History in Florida’s Public Schools and State Universities

33 Rethinking Columbus and 1492 in and out of the Classroom

34 Would You Like to Have Coffee with the Author?

35 I Saw My Entire Life Flash Before My Eyes

Section V¡Despierta Latino!

Introduction

36 Hispanic? Latino? Latinx? What’s Nextx?

37 Hispanic Heritage Month 2020: Some Advice from the Trenches

38 Latinos in Florida’s 2020 Election

39 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

Section VIPuerto Rico, the World’s Oldest Colony

Introduction

40 Crisis in Paradise

41 Puerto Rico’s Democratic Revolt Result of Decades of Mounting Tectonic Pressure

42 Puerto Rico, Its Expanding Diaspora and the 2020 Elections

43 The 20 Plagues of Contemporary Puerto Rico

44 Can’t We Just Sell Multi-Plagued Puerto Rico and Solve the Political Status of the World’s Oldest Colony?

←xii | xiii→

45 Should We Get Married or Continue Living Together? Puerto Rico’s Never-Ending Status Question

Section VIIExercises in Cuban Historiographical Maroonage

Introduction

46 “My Good Friend Roosevelt”: Fidel Castro to FDR, November 6, 1940

47 Unsolicited Advice for Bernie Sanders: Stay Away from the Cuba Trap

48 “Are We Not Your Fellow Artists?”: The Solitude of Cuba’s San Isidro Movement

49 A Tale of Two Other Cities: Rising Authoritarianism out of Washington, D.C., and Havana

50 An Honest Response to a Colleague’s Views on Cuba and U.S. Policy Toward That “Immiserated” Island

51 The Shattered Mirror: Democracy and Anti-Democracy on Both Sides of the Florida Straits, 2021

52 Sixtieth Anniversary of the Cuban Missile Crisis Finds Communist Island in Deepest Crisis Ever

Section VIIINot Boring at All: Globalization and World Affairs

Details

Pages
XX, 420
Publication Year
2023
ISBN (PDF)
9781433195983
ISBN (ePUB)
9781433195990
ISBN (Softcover)
9781433196140
DOI
10.3726/b20055
Language
English
Publication date
2023 (February)
Keywords
Russia/Ukraine War COVID-19 history January 6 Donald Trump Cuba Puerto Rico culture op-eds politics education All History Is Contemporary History Essays on Politics, Culture, and the Unimaginable Events of 2019-2022 Luis Martínez-Fernández
Published
New York, Bern, Berlin, Bruxelles, Oxford, Wien, 2023. XX, 420 pp.

Biographical notes

Luis Martínez-Fernández (Author)

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.

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Title: When the World Turned Upside Down