Miguel Artola Gallego Prince of Asturias Award for Social Sciences 1991

Miguel Artola (San Sebastián, Guipuzkoa, Spain, 1923 - Madrid, Spain, 2020), PhD in Philosophy and Arts from the Complutense University of Madrid, obtained the Chair in Spanish History at the University of Salamanca in 1960, where he worked until 1969, the year in which he took up the same Chair at the Autonomous University of Madrid.

He subsequently served as secretary of the Juan March Foundation Department of History in 1975 and 1976 and as a member of this institution’s Advisory Committee from 1977 to 1978. He has also worked with the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC). He was elected a full member of the Royal Academy of History on 20th March 1981.

As a researcher, he has specialized in the study of the liberal revolution and the origins of contemporary Spain, a subject on which he has written several books, including Volume XXVI of the History of Spain, edited by Menéndez Pidal, La España de Fernando VII, in 1969. He has also published Los afrancesados, Antiguo Régimen y revolución liberal, Los ferrocarriles en España, 1844-1943, Historia de la Hacienda española en el Antiguo Régimen, La burguesía revolucionaria, 1808-1869 and Partidos y programas políticos (1808-1936), carried out with the assistance of Manuel Aguilar, La economía española al final del Antiguo Régimen, La Hacienda del siglo XIX, El latifundio, propiedad y explotación, Los orígenes de la España contemporánea and Textos fundamentales para la historia. The first three volumes of the Enciclopedia de Historia de España, which he edited, came to light in May 1988.

He has been president of the Institute of Spain and is Professor Emeritus of Contemporary History at the Autonomous University of Madrid.