Introduction

The Burning Archive brings you the second in a special two-part interview with the esteemed world historian, Felipe Fernández-Armesto.

Is the world changing in ways not seen for 100 years? How can America's Hispanic past and present inform how it responds to this changing world of more equally distributed power? And what makes explorers like Magellan, Columbus and Captain James Cook such intriguing figures in world history?

In this second episode we discuss 1. Hispanic America in the Multipolar World - How has America's Hispanic History shaped its people and culture, and how can it be a basis to come to terms with a changing balance of power in the world 2. Exploration, Cultural Exchange and the Past - What fascinates people about the history of exploration, and how can it contribute to cross-cultural understanding and a sense of the past?

⁠Felipe Fernández-Armesto⁠'s latest book is Straits: Beyond the Myth of Magellan (Bloomsbury, 2022). He has written some of the best history books, including these discussed in the podcast:

• Civilizations (Macmillan, 2000) or Civilizations: Culture, Ambition, and the Transformation of Nature (Free Press, 2001)

• Food: A History (Macmillan, 2001) or Near a Thousand Tables: A History of Food (Free Press, 2002)
• The Americas: A Hemispheric History (Modern Library, 2003) or The Americas: A History of A Hemisphere (Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2003)
• Ideas That Changed the World (Dorling Kindersley, 2003)
• Humankind: A Brief History (Oxford University Press, 2004)
• Pathfinders: A Global History of Exploration (W. W. Norton, 2006; Oxford University Press, 2007)
• Amerigo: The Man Who Gave His Name to America (Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2006; Random House, 2007)
• The World: A Brief History (Pearson, 2007)
• 1492. The Year the World Began (HarperOne, 2009; Bloomsbury, 2010)
• Our America: A Hispanic History of the United States (W. W. Norton & Co., 2014)
• A Foot in the River: Why Our Lives Change–and the Limits of Evolution (Oxford University Press, 2015)
• The Oxford Illustrated History of the World (Oxford University Press, 2019)
• Out of Our Minds: What We Think and How We Came to Think It (Oneworld, 2019)

Keywords: history, world history, best history books, best historians, civilization, Felipe Fernandez-Armesto, agricultural revolution, culture, social change, environment, climate change, mental health.

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