LiberPress Catalonia Award 2012

Josep Fontana i Lázaro was born in Barcelona in 1931. He graduated in arts and holds a doctorate in history from the University of Barcelona. He was a student of Jaume Vicens i Vives and Ferran Soldevila. He is an expert in economic and financial history and the history of Spain in the nineteenth century. He was an active member of PSUC from 1957 to the beginning of the eighties.

He was the main founder of the Institut Universitari d’Història Jaume Vicens i Vives at the Pompeu Fabra University in Barcelona, and directed the Institute until 2001, also giving classes in the introduction to history at the Pompeu Fabra University until that year.

He has taught economic and contemporary history at the universities of Barcelona and Valencia. He has been a contributor to the magazines Recerques and L’Avenç.He has taught and lectured around the world, especially in South America. He has been made a doctor honoris causa at the Rovira i Virgili University and those of, Comahue (Argentina) and Valladolid.He has won numerous prizes and has received the Gold Medal for Cultural Merit from Barcelona City Council (2002) and the Creu de Sant Jordi (2006), among other distinctions. He has published many books, including La quiebra de la monarquía absoluta (1814-1820), La crisis del Antiguo Régimen (1808-1833), Europa ante el espejo (1994), España bajo el franquismo (1996), Enseñar historia con una guerra civil de por medio (1999), Introducció a l’estudi de la historia (1999), La història dels homes (2000), Aturar el temps (2005), and his latest major work: Por el bien del imperio. Una historia del mundo desde 1945 (2011).