Alberto Gil Novales

Alberto Gil Novales (25 January 1930 – 14 November 2016) was a Spanish historian, brother of the writer, translator and playwright Ramón Gil Novales.

Biography

Alberto Gil Novales was born in Barcelona, the son of Ramón Gil, a civil servant of the Provincial Deputation of Huesca, born in Boltaña, and Concha Novales, a teacher from Huesca of Navarre and La Rioja origins. His maternal grandfather emigrated to Buenos Aires and on his return settled in Huesca, where he opened an espadrille factory and later became a builder.

Alberto Gil Novales studied bachillerato in Huesca and Law at the University of Zaragoza, obtaining his doctorate in Madrid; he furthered his studies in Germany (Saarland University in Saarbrücken, 1958), travelled around Germany, Austria, Italy and France, and in 1959 published his first book, Las pequeñas Atlántidas. In 1961 he was appointed professor at Middlebury College (Middlebury, Vermont) where he taught Spanish and Latin American history and literature. He returned to Spain in 1964 and immediately joined the University of Madrid, where he received his doctorate in 1965; in 1972 he won the post of Assistant Professor of History of Social Phenomena in the Faculty of Philosophy and Letters at the Autonomous University of Barcelona, and in 1980 he became Assistant Professor of Contemporary Universal History in the Faculty of Information Sciences at the Complutense University. There he obtained and occupied the chair of Contemporary Universal History (1983), where he eventually retired. In 1984 he ran for rector of the Complutense to succeed Francisco Bustelo, coming in second place behind Amador Schüller.

He wrote his doctoral thesis in Law and on the figure of the Aragonese regenerationist Joaquín Costa: La concepción del derecho nacional en Joaquín Costa (1965). Among his most relevant studies are Las Sociedades Patrióticas del Trienio Constitucional (1820-1823), a subject in which he is considered one of the greatest specialists, as well as in the history of High Aragon, and various extraordinarily documented biographical works on Joaquín Costa, Antonio Machado, Rafael del Riego or Juan Romero Alpuente, some of whose works he has also edited. In 1983 he founded and edited the long-running journal Trienio, Ilustración y Liberalismo. His latest work was a monumental Biographical Dictionary of Spain (1808-1833), in three volumes, with 25,000 entries. He has published many books, articles and conference papers, in total more than two hundred and fifty titles, and was a member of the editorial board of the journals Ler História of Lisbon, España Contemporánea and since 1992 of Comparativ of Leipzig.

He also contributed several articles for the newspapers Diario 16 and El País. He was a member (1987) and Vice-President (1995) of the International Commission for the History of the French Revolution and Honorary Councillor of the Institute of High Aragonese Studies; the National Academies of History of Colombia and Venezuela appointed him a corresponding member in 1996. He bequeathed his entire library to the Institute of High Aragonese Studies. In the work Diccionario Akal de Historiadores españoles contemporáneos, his political orientation is described as ‘progressive and democratic’. Among his most important disciples are Lluís Roura Aulinas, Juan Francisco Fuentes and Ramón Arnabat.

Works

Major publications

• Las pequeñas Atlántidas (1959)
• Derecho y revolución en el pensamiento de Joaquín Costa (1965)
• Antonio Machado (1966; 1992)
• Las sociedades patrióticas (1820-1823): las libertades de expresión y de reunión en el origen de los partidos políticos (1975; 2 volumes)
• El Trienio liberal (1980; 1989)
• 'La Revolución de 1868 en el Alto Aragón (1980)
• Del antiguo al nuevo régimen en España (1986)
• Bolívar y Europa en las crónicas, el pensamiento político y la historiografía (1986; with Alberto Filippi)
• Riego, Héroe de las Cabezas (1988; with Francisco Domingo Román Ojeda)
• William Maclure. Socialismo Utópico en España (1808-1840) (1989)​
• Images of Wellington and Britain in Spain after 1815 (1990)
• Diccionario biográfico del Trienio liberal (1991; contributor)
• Ciencia e Independencia Política (1996)
• Diccionario biográfico español, 1808-1833 (Personajes Extremeños) (1998)
• Diccionario biográfico aragonés, 1808-1833 (2005)
• Diccionario biográfico de España (1808-1833). De los orígenes del liberalismo a la reacción absolutista (2011; 3 volumes)

As editor

• Rafael del Riego y Núñez, La revolución de 1820, día a día: cartas, escritos y discursos (1976)
• Textos Exaltados Del Trienio Liberal (1979)
• La Revolución Burguesa En España: Actas Del Coloquio Hispano-Alemán, Celebrado En Leipzig Los Días 17 Y 18 De noviembre de 1983 (1985)
• Ejército, pueblo y Constitución: homenaje al general Rafael del Riego. Coloquio internacional en homenaje al general Rafael del Riego Revista Trienio Ilustración y Liberalismo (1987)
• Juan Romero Alpuente, Historia de la Revolución española y otros escritos (1989)
• Joaquín Costa, Historia crítica de la Revolución española (1992)
• Santiago Jonama, Cartas al abate de Pradt: por un indígena de la América del sur (1992)
• La Revolución liberal. Congreso sobre la Revolución liberal española en su diversidad peninsular (e insular) y americana, Madrid, abril de 1999 (2001)
• Pedro Riaño de la Iglesia, La imprenta en la isla gaditana durante la Guerra de la Independencia. Libros, Folletos Y Hojas Volantes (1808-1814) Ensayo Bio-Bibliográfico Documentado (2004; 3 volumes)
• Joaquín Costa, Obra política menor (1868-1916) (2005)
• José Manuel de Vadillo, La Independencia de América: apuntes sobre los principales sucesos que han influido en el estado actual de América del Sur (2006)

Translations

• Gabriel Marcel, Filosofía concreta (1959)

References

• Carantoña Álvarez, Francisco (1987). "William MacLure, socialismo utópico en España (1808-1840)," Estudios humanísticos. Geografía, historia y arte, No. 9): , p. 174.
• Medel Ortega, Valentín (1 de octubre de 1975). "Las sociedades patrióticas," Tiempo de Historia, Vol. I, No. 11, pp. 125–26.
• Pasamar Alzuria, Gonzalo; Peiró Martín, Ignacio (2002). Diccionario Akal de Historiadores españoles contemporáneos. Ediciones Akal.
• Pietschmann, Horst (2009). "Los bicentenarios de la independencia de Iberoamérica, 2008-2025," Revista de Libros, No. 146, pp. 16–17.
• Roura, Lluís (2012). "Alberto Gil Novales, Diccionario biográfico de España (1808‑1833). De los orígenes del liberalismo a la reacción absolutista," Annales historiques de la Révolution française, No. 368, pp. 212–15.

External links

• Works by Alberto Gil Novales at Persée
• Works by Alberto Gil Novales at Dialnet
• Works by Alberto Gil Novales at Miguel de Cervantes Virtual Library