Luis Martínez-Fernández
Luis Martínez-Fernández (born January 14, 1960) is a Cuban-born American historian, educator, and columnist, specializing in Cuban and Caribbean history and culture, education, and global contemporary history. He is Pegasus Professor of History at the University of Central Florida and a weekly syndicated columnist with Creators Syndicate. The focus of his books ranges widely across centuries from Key to the New World: A History of Early Colonial Cuba to Revolutionary Cuba: A History to contemporary US and World events. He served as chief editor of the multiple-award winning Encyclopedia of Cuba: People, History Culture. Early life and education Martínez-Fernández was born in Havana, Cuba in 1960, when the Cuban Revolution was entering its second year. In 1962, his family went into exile, settling briefly in Miami Beach then relocating to Lima Peru, until 1970, when his family moved to Puerto Rico. He attended the University of Puerto Rico (Río Piedras), where he studied under historians Fernando Picó and Andrés Ramos Mattei, earning B.A. and M.A. degrees in History. In 1986, Martínez-Fernández left Puerto Rico to attend Duke University, where he received a PhD in Latin American history (1990). His dissertation director was historian of colonial Latin America John TePaske. Career