Felipe Fernandez-Armesto was born in London in 1950. His books include The Times Atlas of World Exploration, Columbus, Edward Gibbon's Atlas of the World, Barcelona: A Thousand Years of the City's Past, Millennium and Truth. Translations of his work have appeared in twenty languages and he has been shortlisted for numerous prizes. Fernandez-Armesto is Professor of Global Environmental History at Queen Mary, University of London, and has been a member of the Faculty of Modern History at Oxford University since 1983. From September 2005 he has been Principe de Asturias Chair in Spanish Culture and Civilization at Tufts University. He lives in Oxford.