Felipe Fernández-Armesto is William P. Reynolds Professor of History at the University of Notre Dame. His work, which has covered many fields and disciplines and has appeared in twenty-seven languages, has won him numerous awards, including the John Carter Brown Medal, a World History Association Book Prize (for Pathfinders, 2007), Spain¿s national prizes for geography and foodwriting, and, most recently, the Gran Cruz de la Orden de Alfonso X el Sabio, Spain¿s highest award for services to education and the arts.