John H. Elliott Prince of Asturias Award for Social Sciences 1996

Sir John Elliott (Reading, Berks, Great Britain, 1930 - ) was Professor Emeritus of Modern History at the University of Oxford. Educated at Eton College, he earned a PhD in History from the University of Cambridge (Trinity College, 1952) and lectured at the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton (United States) for 17 years.

An Honorary Fellow of Oriel College, Oxford, and of Trinity College, Cambridge, he is held to be one of the world’s leading Hispanists, specializing mainly in the 16th and 17th centuries in Spanish history, especially in the figure of the validos or favourites and, more specifically, that of the Count-Duke of Olivares and in the comparative history of Spanish and British colonization in America.

In addition to his extensive teaching career, both in England as a guest lecturer at the most exceptional universities in the world, he is the author of, among many other books, La España Imperial, 1469-1716 (1963), The Rebellion of the Catalans (1963), The Old World and the New, 1492-1650 (1970), Richelieu and Olivares (1984), The Count-Duke of Olivares (1986), Spain and Its World (1989), The Old World and the New (1992) Europa en la época de Felipe II, 1559-1598 (2001, 2nd ed.), En busca de la historia atlántica (2001), España en Europa: estudios de historia comparada (2002), A Palace for the King (with Jonathan Brown) (2003), Empires of the Atlantic World: Britain and Spain in America, 1492-1830 (2006), España, Europa y el mundo de ultramar (1500-1800) (2009), and He Mistory in thaking (2012).

Corresponding member of the Royal Academy of History, Madrid, and member of the British Royal Academy of History, he was also a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and member of the American Philosophical Society. He holds honorary degrees from the Autonomous University of Madrid and the Universities of Barcelona, Valencia, Lleida, Genoa, Portsmouth, Warwick and Brown. Among other distinctions, he knighted by HM Queen Elizabeth II, and holds the Grand Cross of Alfonso X the Wise, the Grand Cross of Isabella the Catholic, the Medal of Honour from the Menéndez y Pelayo International University and Spain’s Gold Medal for Merit in Fine Arts. He likewise received awards such as the Wolfson History Prize (1986), the Eloy Antonio de Nebrija Prize (1993) and the Balzan Prize for History 1500-1800 (1999).