Felipe Fernández-Armesto

An eminent scholar finds a new American history in the Hispanic past of our diverse nation. The United States is still typically conceived of as an offshoot of England, with our history unfolding east to west beginning with the first English settlers in Jamestown. This view overlooks the significance of America’s Hispanic past. With the profile of the United States increasingly Hispanic, the importance of recovering the Hispanic dimension to our national story has never been greater. This absorbing narrative begins with the explorers and conquistadores who planted Spain’s first colonies in Puerto Rico, Florida, and the Southwest. Missionaries and rancheros carry Spain’s expansive impulse into the late eighteenth century, settling California, mapping the American interior to the Rockies, and charting the Pacific coast. During the nineteenth century Anglo-America expands west under the banner of “Manifest Destiny” and consolidates control through war with Mexico. In the Hispanic resurgence that follows, it is the peoples of Latin America who overspread the continent, from the Hispanic heartland in the West to major cities such as Chicago, Miami, New York, and Boston. The United States clearly has a Hispanic present and future. And here is its Hispanic past, presented with characteristic insight and wit by one of our greatest historians.

Our America: A Hispanic History of the United States

Authoritative, Compelling, provocative: internationally respected historian Felipe Fernandez-Armesto introduces you to the key historical and philosophical notions that have shaped our world since the dawn of civilization. Over 175 of the world's most pivotal ideas are crystallized and clearly explained -- from cannibalism to zen, from time to the unconscious, from logic to chaos theory. The author's wide-ranging and unashamedly personal analysis is accompanied by a stimulating mix of contemporary and historical images, bringing often hard-to-grasp concepts vividly to life. Chronologically Arranged, the format of this book nevertheless allows you to start at the beginning or dip in at any point. The connections between ground-breaking ideas are highlighted throughout, along with expert suggestions for thought-provoking further reading. Book jacket.

Ideas that Changed the World

The author shows how our concept of humankind has changed over time and argues our current understanding of what it means to be human has been shaken by new discoveries from science and philosophy.

A Brief History of Humankind

So You Think You're Human?

An Oxford scholar presents a genuine global history that spans ten centuries and combines two vantage points, one a sweeping vision that links times together and the other a smaller, more particular look at the things that made up world events. Reprint. 25,000 first printing.

A History of the Last Thousand Years

Millennium

A close examination of the world's societies, from the maritime civilizations of the Polynesians to the Dawada people of the Sahara. Rather than looking to the familiar spots of Rome and Paris, Fernadez-Armesto takes us to unfamiliar territories to redifine our understanding of what it is to be civilized.

Civilizations

The Spanish Armada challenges that view. On the 400th anniversary of the famous sea battle, it offers a more balanced account of the confrontation between the Spanish and British naval powers than has previously been presented. According to Felipe Fernandez-Armesto, the British did not "defeat" the Spaniards; rather, the event should be seen as a "failure" of the Armada to invade British territory. Miles from home, with many of its crew sick, and fighting in stormy waters, the Spanish fleet did well, Fernandez argues, not to be completely routed. Further, he says, it reflects badly on the British not to have inflicted more damage on such a disadvantaged opponent.

The Experience of War in 1588

The Spanish Armada

In Amerigo, the award-winning scholar Felipe Fernández-Armesto answers the question “What’s in a name?” by delivering a rousing flesh-and-blood narrative of the life and times of Amerigo Vespucci. Here we meet Amerigo as he really was: a rogue and raconteur who counted Christopher Columbus among his friends and rivals; an amateur sorcerer who attained fame and honor through a series of disastrous failures and equally grand self-reinventions. Filled with well-informed insights and amazing anecdotes, this magisterial and compulsively readable account sweeps readers from Medicean Florence to the Sevillian court of Ferdinand and Isabella, then across the Atlantic of Columbus to the brave New World where fortune favored the bold. Amerigo Vespucci emerges from these pages as an irresistible avatar for the age of exploration–and as a man of genuine achievement as a voyager and chronicler of discovery. And now, in Amerigo, this mercurial and elusive figure finally has a biography to do full justice to both the man and his remarkable era. Praise for Amerigo: “Wonderfully idiosyncratic and intelligent.” –The New York Times Book Review “Fascinating . . . [Fernández-Armesto’s] lively style is effective in evoking the flashy and violent world of Renaissance Europe.” –The Washington Post Book World “An outstanding historian . . . [Fernández-Armesto] introduces Amerigo Vespucci as an amazing Renaissance character independent of his name’s fame–and does Fernández-Armesto ever deliver.” –Booklist (starred review) “Dazzling . . . an elegant tale of Vespucci’s ability to transform himself from a merchant into an explorer and conqueror of new worlds.” –Publishers Weekly (starred review) NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY THE WASHINGTON POST

The Man Who Gave His Name to America

Amerigo

Leonard Blussé

Shifting Communities and Identity Formation in Early Modern Asia

James Muldoon

Around the year 1000 Rodulfus Glaber described France as being in the throes of a building boom. He may have been the first writer to perceive the early medieval period as a Dark Age that was ending to be replaced by a better world. This book discusses the ways in which this transformation took place.

Internal Colonization in Medieval Europe

Michael Batty

Spiro N. Pollalis

Ryan Bishop

Jerome Krase

Ellen Dunham-Jones

Liudmyla Fylypovych

Maxim Lepskiy

Avi Nardia

Vitalii Lunov

Oleg Maltsev

Charles Landry

Eduardo Almeida

Oleksandr Sahaidak

Peter J. M. Nas

Carol Highsmith

Dwight Wilson 

Bryan Darr

Michael Hynes

Irina Lopatyuk

Collected Papers of the International scientific and practical conference “City as a Classroom” This conference is designed to consolidate the efforts of scientists and experts to ultimately comprehend existing questions with scientifically based keys, directed at uncovering the logic and tactics of implementing "HOW TO MAKE THIS CIVILIZATION A FLOURISHING ONE". In the course of six days of the conference, the following topics were covered in the format of online discussion panels: 1. Theoretical foundations for studying cities. City as a set of factors defining the status and level of personality development; 2. Symbolism, photography, expeditionary scientific activities, and other methods of exploring cities; 3. Ongoing threats in the context of the city; 4. Symbolism, mysticism and visual sociology of the European continent. Sociological, psychological, anthropological and religious perspectives on cities in other continents; 5. City as a university and training program in life; 6. Architecture as textbooks for city residents and unconscious training in the course of their lives in a city. As an outcome of the scientific discussion, the following aspects were considered and analyzed: the way the urban environment affects a person and determines his or her future; how may the methodology of researching a city as a classroom may; security in the city; the stages of personal development; statuses and factors determining personal development and photography as a tool for looking into historical enigmas. Organizing committee of “City as a Classroom” thanks all speakers and participants of the conference: Dr. Felipe Fernández-Armesto Ph.D Dr. Oleg Maltsev Prof. Dr. Peter J. M. Nas Prof. Dr. Michael Batty Charles Landry Prof. Dr. Jerome Krase Prof. Ellen Dunham-Jones Prof. Dr. Spiro N. Pollalis Eduardo Almeida Prof. Mitchell Joachim Prof. Maxim Lepskiy Prof. Vitalii Lunov Prof. Dr. Viktor Kotygorenko Carol Highsmith Prof. Liudmyla Fylypovych Dr. Ryan Bishop PhD Oleksandr Sahaidak Bryan Darr Prof. Dr. Vitalii Krivoshein Irina Lopatiuk Dwight Wilson Prof. Sarah Williams Goldhagen Avi Nardia Costantino Slobodyanyuk Dr. Yuliia Soroka Prof. Dr. Valentina Voronkova Olga Panchenko Dr. Michael Hynes Ph.D. Olga Guzhva Maryna Illiusha Olga Prokopova Dr. Olena Semenets Anna Varina Valeriya Goncharova

International scientific and practical conference

City as a Classroom

A collection of 175 ideas which have changed the world are presented in this volume - from time to evolution, and anarchy to Zen. Using illustrations to bring the concepts to life, this thought-provoking book could be great for dinner party conversations.

A distinguished scholar traces the history of exploration from a global perspective, following the pathfinders and their expeditions over the course of five millennia to the farthest reaches of the world, from ancient Egypt, through the merchants and missionaries of the Silk Roads, to the discovery of the New World and the nineteenth-century expeditions to Africa, the Arctic, North America, and the South Pacific. Reprint.

Pathfinders: A Global History of Exploration

In this groundbreaking work, leading historian Felipe Fernández-Armesto tells the story of our hemisphere as a whole, showing why it is impossible to understand North, Central, and South America in isolation without turning to the intertwining forces that shape the region. With imagination, thematic breadth, and his trademark wit, Fernández-Armesto covers a range of cultural, political, and social subjects, taking us from the dawn of human migration to North America to the Colonial and Independence periods to the “American Century” and beyond. Fernández-Armesto does nothing less than revise the conventional wisdom about cross-cultural exchange, conflict, and interaction, making and supporting some brilliantly provocative conclusions about the Americas’ past and where we are headed.

A Hemispheric History

The Americas

Drawing extensively on personal accounts, this book gives a vivid picture of what it was like to fight this grueling war. It describes the common experience and sufferings of those who took part on both sides; the chaotic strategic preparations; the muddled thinking of the higher command; the frustration, misery, pain, and fear in battle; and of the hopeless struggle against the common enemy, the appalling weather.

In 1507, European cartographers were struggling to redraw their maps of the world and to name the newly found lands of the Western Hemisphere. The name they settled on: America, after Amerigo Vespucci, an obscure Florentine explorer. In Amerigo, the award-winning scholar Felipe Fernández-Armesto answers the question “What’s in a name?” by delivering a rousing flesh-and-blood narrative of the life and times of Amerigo Vespucci. Here we meet Amerigo as he really was: a sometime slaver and small-time jewel trader; a contemporary, confidant, and rival of Columbus; an amateur sorcerer who attained fame and honor by dint of a series of disastrous failures and equally grand self-reinventions. Filled with well-informed insights and amazing anecdotes, this magisterial and compulsively readable account sweeps readers from Medicean Florence to the Sevillian court of Ferdinand and Isabella, then across the Atlantic of Columbus to the brave New World where fortune favored the bold. Amerigo Vespucci emerges from these pages as an irresistible avatar for the age of exploration–and as a man of genuine achievement as a voyager and chronicler of discovery. A product of the Florentine Renaissance, Amerigo in many ways was like his native Florence at the turn of the sixteenth century: fast-paced, flashy, competitive, acquisitive, and violent. His ability to sell himself–evident now, 500 years later, as an entire hemisphere that he did not “discover” bears his name–was legendary. But as Fernández-Armesto ably demonstrates, there was indeed some fire to go with all the smoke: In addition to being a relentless salesman and possibly a ruthless appropriator of other people’s efforts, Amerigo was foremost a person of unique abilities, courage, and cunning. And now, in Amerigo, this mercurial and elusive figure finally has a biography to do full justice to both the man and his remarkable era. “A dazzling new biography . . . an elegant tale.” –Publishers Weekly (starred review) “An outstanding historian of Atlantic exploration, Fernández-Armesto delves into the oddities of cultural transmission that attached the name America to the continents discovered in the 1490s. Most know that it honors Amerigo Vespucci, whom the author introduces as an amazing Renaissance character independent of his name’s fame–and does Fernández-Armesto ever deliver.” –Booklist (starred review)

Imagine the planet, as if from an immense distance of time and space, as a galactic observer might see it—with the kind of objectivity that we, who are enmeshed in our history, can ́t attain. The Oxford Illustrated History of the World encompasses the whole span of human history. It brings together some of the world's leading historians, under the expert guidance of Felipe Fernandez-Armesto, to tell the 200,000-year story of our world, from the emergence of homo sapiens through to the twenty-first century: the environmental convulsions; the interplay of ideas (good and bad); the cultural phases and exchanges; the collisions and collaborations in politics; the successions of states and empires; the unlocking of energy; the evolutions of economies; the contacts, conflicts, and contagions that have all contributed to making the world we now inhabit.

The Oxford Illustrated History of the World

Glyndwr Williams

Andrew David

Among the voyages of exploration and surveying in the late 18th century, that of Alejandro Malaspina best represents the high ideals and scientific interests of the Enlightenment. Italian-born, Malaspina entered the Spanish navy in 1774. In September 1788 he and fellow-officer José Bustamante submitted a plan to the Ministry of Marine for a voyage of survey and inspection to Spanish territories in the Americas and Philippines. The expedition was to produce hydrographic charts for the use of Spanish merchantmen and warships and to report on the political, economic and defensive state of Spain's overseas possessions. The plan was approved and in July 1789 Malaspina and Bustamante sailed from Cádiz in the purpose-built corvettes, Descubierta and Atrevida. On board the vessels were scientists and artists and an array of the latest surveying and astronomical instruments. The voyage lasted more than five years. On his return Malaspina was promoted Brigadier de la Real Armada, and began work on an account of the voyage in seven volumes to dwarf the narratives of his predecessors in the Pacific such as Cook and Bougainville. Among much else, it would contain sweeping recommendations for reform in the governance of Spain's overseas empire. But Malaspina became involved in political intrigue. In November 1795 he was arrested, stripped of his rank and sentenced to life imprisonment. Although released in 1803, Malaspina spent the last seven years of his life in obscure retirement in Italy. He never resumed work on the great edition, and his journal was not published in Spain until 1885. Only in recent years has a multi-volume edition appeared under the auspices of the Museo Naval, Madrid, that does justice to the achievements of what for long was a forgotten voyage. This first volume of a series of three contains Malaspina's diario or journal from 31 July 1789 to 14 December 1790, newly translated into English, with substantial introduction and commentary. Among the places visited and described are Montevideo, Puerto Deseado, Port Egmont, Puerto San Carlos, Valparaíso, Callao, Guayaquil and Panamá. Other texts include Malaspina's introduction to his intended edition, and his correspondence with the Minister of the Marine before and during the voyage.

Journal of the Voyage by Alejandro Malaspina. Volume I: Cádiz to Panamá

The Malaspina Expedition 1789–1794

A groundbreaking biography of the man who gave his name to America, "Amerigo" is delivered by one of the worlds most exciting historians who spins a grand narrative full of character and story. 4 maps.

The History of a Hemisphere

"A brilliant and readable book...a rich study of humankind's restless spirit." —Candice Millard, New York Times Book Review Greeted with coast-to-coast acclaim on publication, Fernández-Armesto's ambitious history of world exploration sets a new standard. Presenting the subject for the first time on a truly global scale, Fernández-Armesto tracks the pathfinders who, over the past five millennia, lay down the routes of contact that have drawn together the farthest reaches of the world. The Wall Street Journal calls it "impressive...a huge story [told] with gusto and panache." To the Washington Post, "Pathfinders is propelled by an Argonaut of an author, indefatigable and daring. It's a wild ride." And in a front-page review, the Seattle Times hails its "tart and elegant presentation...full of surprises. Fernández-Armesto's lively mind, pithy phrasing, and stunningly thorough and diverse knowledge are a constant pleasure." A plenitude of illustrations and maps in color and black and white augment this rich history. In Pathfinders we have a definitive treatment of a grand subject.

"A stimulating history of how the imagination interacted with its sibling psychological faculties—emotion, perception and reason—to shape the history of human mental life."—The Wall Street Journal To imagine—to see what is not there—is the startling ability that has fueled human development and innovation through the centuries. As a species we stand alone in our remarkable capacity to refashion the world after the picture in our minds. Traversing the realms of science, politics, religion, culture, philosophy, and history, Felipe Fernández-Armesto reveals the thrilling and disquieting tales of our imaginative leaps—from the first Homo sapiens to the present day. Through groundbreaking insights in cognitive science, Fernández-Armesto explores how and why we have ideas in the first place, providing a tantalizing glimpse into who we are and what we might yet accomplish. Unearthing historical evidence, he begins by reconstructing the thoughts of our Paleolithic ancestors to reveal the subtlety and profundity of the thinking of early humans. A masterful paean to the human imagination from a wonderfully elegant thinker, Out of Our Minds shows that bad ideas are often more influential than good ones; that the oldest recoverable thoughts include some of the best; that ideas of Western origin often issued from exchanges with the wider world; and that the pace of innovative thinking is under threat.

Felipe Fernández-Armesto

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