Jose L. Mas was born in Cuba and is professor emeritus at California State University, Chico. He received a Law degree from the University of Havana and a doctorate in philosophy, with a specialty in Spanish language and literature, from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). Dr. Mas has published three articles on the ideology of Jose Marti, José Martí y el Romanticismo Social (F.R. Lamennais una posible influencia en el joven José Martí), En torno a la ideología de José Martí y La huella de José Martí en Ariel. For his studies on the famous Cuban writer, he was awarded the annual award given by the Jose Marti Foundation.

This book examines the ideology of José Martí, based on his intellectual formation, and in accordance with what was stated in the chronicles he wrote about the United States during the 15 years he resided in this country, before his death in Cuba in 1895. There is an effort to establish the affinity between the ideas expressed by Marti in his essays and those of the French thinker Felicite R. de Lamennais, one of the leaders of the movement known as Social Romanticism