Dalmau Palet, Pol
DALMAU PALET, POL
Pol Dalmau is a historian of modern Spain in global perspective.
He received his PhD from the European University Institute in Florence, and was a Humboldt Postdoctoral researcher at the Leibniz Institut für Europäische Geschichte in Mainz, Germany. At present he is a Ramón y Cajal Researcher at Pompeu Fabra University, where he teaches in the B.A. in Global Studies and the M.A. in World History.
His PhD examined the crisis of liberal politics in Europe through the case of the Godó family, a prominent dynasty of journalists, politicians and businessmen who founded Catalonia’s top-selling newspaper La Vanguardia. The case of this family, who held economic interests in Cuba and Morocco, allowed examining the way liberal elites coped with the birth of mass politics, and to shed light on the role of the commercial press in fostering Spanish colonialism in the Caribbean and Morocco. A revised version of this thesis was published in the book series at the Cañada Blanch Centre for Contemporary Spanish Studies at the London School of Economics.
His current line of research is guided by the objective of reconceptualizing modern Spain by relating it to global history debates. Rather than a country circumscribed to the Iberian Peninsula, his work unveils Spain’s global dimensions through a myriad of connections with North Africa, the Caribbean, Southeast Asia and the Near East. This research has yielded publications in different journals, such as the Journal of Global History, Contemporary European History, and an edited book in Palgrave McMillan, among others.
In parallel Dalmau has embarked on a new research project, funded by the BBVA Foundation, aimed at providing a connected history of Europe and the Pacific during the Age of Empire. The project delves into the history of a Barcelona-based project to establish a European colony in the Bismarck Archipelago, in the southwestern Pacific Ocean.
Awards:
- Manuel Pérez Ledesma Prize to the best article in modern history published in Spain (2018).
Selected publications:
Books
- Press, Politics and National Identities in Catalonia: the Transformation of La Vanguardia, 1881-1931 (Brighton: Cañada Blanch Centre / Sussex Academic Press, 2017).
Edited volumes
- Corruption, Empire and Colonialism in the Modern Era: A Global Perspective (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2021) (with R. Kroeze and F. Monier).
Articles
- ‘Catalans and Rifis during the Wilsonian Moment: The Quest for Self-Determination in the Post-Versailles World’, Contemporary European History, 32, 2023, 131-145.
- ‘Historia global e historia nacional: ¿una relación insalvable?’, Ayer, 120, 2020, 311-324 (with J. Luengo).
- ‘Writing Spanish history in the global age: connections and entanglements in the nineteenth century’, Journal of Global History, 13-3, 2018, 425-445 (with J. Luengo).
- ‘Looking at London for Inspiration. Cultural Transfers between England, Italy and Spain in the Field of Journalism’, Media History, 26, 2019, 1-14.
- ‘La reputación del notable. Escándalos y capital simbólico en la España liberal’, Historia y Política, 39, 2018, 79-107.
- ‘La imagen pública del poder. Escándalos y causas célebres en Europa (siglos XIX-XX)’, Historia y Política, 39, 2018 (special issue, edited with Isabel Burdiel).
- ‘Premsa i poder a la Catalunya contemporània: els Godó i la fundació de La Vanguardia’, Història de la premsa diària de Barcelona, 25, 2018, 59-72.