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

Catalonia Catalonia (; ca, Catalunya ; Aranese Occitan: ''Catalonha'' ; es, Cataluña ) is an autonomous community of Spain, designated as a '' nationality'' by its Statute of Autonomy. Most of the territory (except the Val d'Aran) lies on the nort ...

Education

Born in Barcelona, he received his

master's degree A master's degree (from Latin ) is an 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 practice.

in philosophy and letters (section history) at the

University of Barcelona The University of Barcelona ( ca, Universitat de Barcelona, UB; ; es, link=no, Universidad de Barcelona) is a public university located in the city of Barcelona, Catalonia, in Spain. With 63,000 students, it is one of the biggest universities i ...

in 1956 and his

doctorate A doctorate (from Latin ''docere'', "to teach"), doctor's degree (from Latin ''doctor'', "teacher"), or doctoral degree is an academic degree awarded by universities and some other educational institutions, derived from the ancient formalism ''li ...

in history by the same university in 1970. He was a student of

Jaume Vicens i Vives Jaume Vicens Vives (6 June 1910 in Girona, Spain – 28 June 1960 in Lyon, France) was a Spanish historian, and is considered, along with Pierre Vilar, one of the top influential Catalan historians of the 20th century. According to Eliseo Cl ...

and Ferran Soldevila. Their main currents of investigation are

economic history Economic history is the academic learning of economies or economic events of the past. Research is conducted using a combination of historical methods, statistical methods and the application of economic theory to historical situations and i ...

, 19th century

Spanish history The history of Spain dates to contact the pre-Roman peoples of the Mediterranean coast of the Iberian Peninsula made with the Greeks and Phoenicians and the first writing systems known as Paleohispanic scripts were developed. During Classical A ...

and the history of property. He was influenced in his thought by

E.P. Thompson Edward Palmer Thompson (3 February 1924 – 28 August 1993) was an English historian, writer, socialist and peace campaigner. He is best known today for his historical work on the radical movements in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, in ...

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

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

and

Walter Benjamin Walter Bendix Schönflies Benjamin (; ; 15 July 1892 – 26 September 1940) was a German Jewish philosopher, cultural critic and essayist. An eclectic thinker, combining elements of German idealism, Romanticism, Western Marxism, and Jewish ...

Career

The Jaume Vicens i Vives University Institute of History, the interdisciplinary Ph.D. history institute in the

Pompeu Fabra University Pompeu Fabra University ( ca, Universitat Pompeu Fabra, UPF, ; es, link=no, Universidad Pompeu Fabra) is a public university located in the city of Barcelona, Catalonia in Spain. The university was created by the Autonomous Government of Catalo ...

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 ( ca-valencia, Universitat de València ; also known as UV) is a public research university located in the city of Valencia, Spain. It is one of the oldest surviving universities in Spain, and the oldest in the Vale ...

and at the

Autonomous University of Barcelona The Autonomous University of Barcelona ( ca, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona; , es, Universidad Autónoma de Barcelona; UAB), is a public university mostly located in Cerdanyola del Vallès, near the city of Barcelona in Catalonia, Spain. ...

. 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. In the Renaissance, the term contrasted with divinity and referred to what is now called classics, the main area of secular study in universities at the t ...

track of the

Universitat Pompeu Fabra Pompeu Fabra University ( ca, Universitat Pompeu Fabra, UPF, ; es, link=no, Universidad Pompeu Fabra) is a public university located in the city of Barcelona, Catalonia in Spain. The university was created by the Autonomous Government of Catalo ...

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