Jordi Nadal Oller (Cassà de la Selva, 1929)

He was born in the Catalan town Cassà de la Selva in 1929. He became a doctor in History at the University of Barcelona in 1957. His PhD thesis, which dealt with the French immigration to Catalunya in the 17th century, was later published in Paris in the prestigious collection of the École Pratique des Hautes Études (Viè Section) in 1960. Between 1952 and 1967 he worked as assistant professor of Economic History at the University of Barcelona. Later, he was appointed full professor at the University of Valencia (1968-70) and at the Autonomous University of Barcelona (1970-1981), returning the same year to the University of Barcelona. Since 1999 he has been Emeritus Professor of this University, and also has kept teaching at the Pompeu Fabra University.

His research work comprises two stages. His main concern until 1968 was population history. He published several articles and essays on this issue. Amongst the best well known, Inmigració i redreç demografic. Els francesos a la Catalunya dels segles XVI i XVII (Eumo, 2000, translated from the 1960 original French edition); La población española, s. XVI-XX (first published in Ariel in 1966, latest reprint in 1994); and the collection of articles Bautismos, desposorios y entierros. Estudios de historia demográfica (Ariel, 1992). Since 1968 onwards, his main field of research has been focused on industrial history.

First of all we should mention his seminal essays "The failure of the industrial Revolution in Spain" in Carlo M. Cipolla ed., The Fontana Economic History of Europe, Vol 4. Part Two, The Emergence of Industrial Societies (Collins, 1973), far more elaborated in the Spanish version El fracaso de la Revolución industrial en España, 1814-1913 (Ariel, 1975; 15 reprints until 1996). An important group of articles written on these issues appeared in his book Moler, Tejer y Fundir. Estudios de Historia Industrial (Ariel 1992). Recently he has been the director of the comprehensive volume Atlas de la Industrialización de España 1750-2000 (Crítica/Fundación BBVA, 2003). He has also edited several highly praised collective volumes, namely: Història Econòmica de la Catalunya Contemporània (Enciclopèdia Catalana, 6 volumes, 1988-1994); La economía española en el siglo XX: una perspectiva histórica, together with Albert Carreras and Carles Sudrià (Ariel, 1987); Pautas regionales de la industrialización española (siglos XIX y XX), with Albert Carreras again (Ariel, 1990); and La cara oculta de la industrialización española. La modernización de los sectores no líderes, together with Jordi Catalan (Alianza, 1994).