Josep Fontana i Lázaro (20 November 1931 – 28 August 2018) was a Spanish historian from

Catalonia Catalonia is an autonomous community of Spain, designated as a ''nationalities and regions of Spain, nationality'' by its Statute of Autonomy of Catalonia of 2006, Statute of Autonomy. Most of its territory (except the Val d'Aran) is situate ...

Education

Born in Barcelona, he received his

master's degree A master's degree (from Latin ) is a postgraduate academic degree awarded by universities or colleges upon completion of a course of study demonstrating mastery or a high-order overview of a specific field of study or area of professional prac ...

in philosophy and letters (section history) at the

University of Barcelona The University of Barcelona (official name in ; UB), formerly also known as Central University of Barcelona (), is a public research university located in the city of Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain. It was established in 1450. With 76,000 students, ...

in 1956 and his

doctorate A doctorate (from Latin ''doctor'', meaning "teacher") or doctoral degree is a postgraduate academic degree awarded by universities and some other educational institutions, derived from the ancient formalism '' licentia docendi'' ("licence to teach ...

in history by the same university in 1970. He was a student of Jaume Vicens i Vives and Ferran Soldevila. Their main currents of investigation are

economic history Economic history is the study of history using methodological tools from economics or with a special attention to economic phenomena. Research is conducted using a combination of historical methods, statistical methods and the Applied economics ...

, 19th century Spanish history and the history of property. He was influenced in his thought by E.P. Thompson,

Pierre Vilar Pierre Vilar (3 May 1906, Frontignan – 7 August 2003, Saint-Palais, Pyrénées-Atlantiques, Saint-Palais) was a French historian specialized in the history of Catalonia and Hispanism. He is considered one of the most authoritative 20th-century ...

Gramsci Antonio Francesco Gramsci ( , ; ; 22 January 1891 – 27 April 1937) was an Italian Marxist philosopher, linguist, journalist, writer, and politician. He wrote on philosophy, political theory, sociology, history, and linguistics. He was a fo ...

and

Walter Benjamin Walter Bendix Schönflies Benjamin ( ; ; 15 July 1892 – 26 September 1940) was a German-Jewish philosopher, cultural critic, media theorist, and essayist. An eclectic thinker who combined elements of German idealism, Jewish mysticism, Western M ...

Career

The Jaume Vicens i Vives University Institute of History, the interdisciplinary Ph.D. history institute in the Pompeu Fabra University in Barcelona was originally directed and founded by Dr. Fontana, in which he continued to teach classes of Introduction to History and 20th-century Spanish history until his death. He taught economic, the interplay between history, law and economics and contemporary history at the

, the

University of Valencia The University of Valencia ( ), shortened to UV, is a public research university in Valencia, Spain. It is one of the oldest universities in Spain, and the oldest in the Valencian Community. It is regarded as one of Spain's leading academic i ...

and at the

Autonomous University of Barcelona The Autonomous University of Barcelona (; Spanish: ; ; UAB) is a public university mostly located in Cerdanyola del Vallès, near the city of Barcelona in Catalonia, Spain. , the university consists of 57 departments in the experimental, lif ...

. Dr. Fontana was an active contributor to scholarly history publications after 1970, among them, ''l'Avenç'' (1976). The Introduction to History course taught during the first cycle of the

humanities Humanities are academic disciplines that study aspects of human society and culture, including Philosophy, certain fundamental questions asked by humans. During the Renaissance, the term "humanities" referred to the study of classical literature a ...

track of the Universitat Pompeu Fabra is based on Fontana's book ''Introduction to the Study of History''.

Publications

*1971: ''La quiebra de la monarquía absoluta (1814-1820)'' (Crítica) *1979: ''La crisis del Antiguo Régimen'' (Crítica) *1982: ''Historia: análisis del pasado y proyecto social'' (Crítica) *1992: ''La història després de la fi de la història'' (Eumo) *1994: ''Europa ante el espejo'' (Crítica) *1999: ''Enseñar historia con una guerra civil de por medio'' (Crítica) *1999: ''Introducció a l'estudi de la història'' (Crítica) *2000: ''La història dels homes'' (Crítica) *2005: ''Aturar el temps'' (Crítica) *2006: ''De en medio del tiempo'' (Crítica) *2006: ''La construcció de la identitat'' (Base) *2007: ''Historia de España, vol. 6: La época del liberalismo'' (Crítica-Marcial Pons) *2010: ''L'ofici d'historiador'' (Documenta Universitària) *2011: ''Por el bien del imperio. Una historia del mundo desde 1945'' (Pasado & Presente) *2013: ''El futuro es un país extraño. Una reflexión sobre la crisis social de comienzos de siglo'' (Pasado & Presente) *2014: ''La formació d'una identitat. Una història de Catalunya'' (Eumo) *2017: ''El siglo de la revolución'' (Crítica) *2018: ''L'ofici d'historiador'' (new augmented edition, Arcàdia) *2018: ''Sobre la història i els seus usos públics'' (Publicacions de la Universitat de València) *2018: ''La crisi com a triomf del capitalisme. Anàlisi del passat i perspectives marxistes'' (posthumous publication, Tres i Quatre) *2019: ''Capitalisme i democràcia 1756-1848 Com va començar aquest engany'' (posthumous publication, Edicions 62)

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Fontana, Josep 1931 births 2018 deaths 20th-century Spanish historians Historians from Catalonia Writers from Barcelona Academic staff of Pompeu Fabra University Historians of Francoist Spain 21st-century Spanish historians