Alfredo Alvar facts for kids

Alfredo Alvar Ezquerra (born in Granada, Spain, in 1960) is a Spanish historian. He is a research professor at the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC) and an expert in Modern Age history. He is also a member of the Royal Academy of History and teaches at the Complutense University of Madrid.

Alfredo is the son of Manuel Alvar, a well-known Spanish expert in language.

Studying History

Alfredo Alvar's research mostly focuses on the Modern Age in Spain. At first, he studied the time of King Philip II and how Madrid became the permanent capital city. Later, he explored other areas like:

• Historiography: This is the study of how history is written and how historians work.
• Arbitrismo: These were ideas and suggestions given to the king to solve problems in the kingdom, especially about money. It was one of the first types of economic writing in the Modern Age.
• Biographies: He wrote about important people from the 16th and 17th centuries in Spain.

Alvar's work is influenced by ideas from sociology (the study of how societies work) and economics (the study of how money and resources are managed).

To discover new things in history, historians either find new ways to understand old information or uncover completely new facts and sources. Professor Alvar is known for always looking for new scientific sources. He did this even in his first book, which was about the writings of Antonio Pérez, King Philip II's secretary. He also did this in his recent biographies of Isabella I of Castile and Miguel de Cervantes.

Professor Alvar has worked on many scientific projects and led many of them. Besides teaching at the Complutense University, he also helped set up a special course on Spanish Modern History in Quito, Ecuador, where he was a guest professor.

Alfredo Alvar is very active in sharing historical knowledge with others. He has worked with different scientific journals, even directing some of them. He often gives courses, lectures, and seminars, which are a regular part of Madrid's cultural life.

His Books

Alfredo Alvar has written almost twenty books. Here are some of his most notable ones:

• The birth of a European capital city. Madrid between 1561 and 1606: This book won the Villa de Madrid prize for Essay and Humanities in 1989, when he was only 31 years old.
• Caesar Charles: from Ghent to El Escorial: This is his biography of Charles V. It won awards for its design and was a top prize winner for books in 1999.
• The dossier of the errant courtier: This book was given as a special gift by Madrid's Mayor in 2006.
• Isabella I of Castile. A triumphant queen, a defeated woman.
• Cervantes. Genius and freedom: This was the first biography of the famous Spanish writer Miguel de Cervantes written by a historian.

Alvar has also helped put together and edit entire collections of history books. He also edited important historical texts, such as the Accounts and Letters by Antonio Pérez, which he edited when he was just 25. He also edited the Spanish translation of De Materia Medica by Dioscorides, a book about medicines. Another important work he edited was the Topographical Accounts of Phillip II. This was a huge effort to understand what different villages in the kingdom were like. Before Alvar's work, people thought these accounts were just for collecting taxes, but he showed they were much more.

See also

In Spanish: Alfredo Alvar Ezquerra para niños