Antonio Feros

Antonio Feros teaches and writes about politics, culture, and ethnic relations in the early modern Spanish empire, as well as Spanish intellectual and modern history. He has published several articles on the history of the reigns of Philip II (1556-1598), Philip III (1598-1621), and Philip IV (1621-1665); the ideas and images of kingship in seventeenth-century Spanish drama and painting; political and court cultures in early modern Europe; and the historiography of the Spanish conquest and colonization of America. He is the author of Kingship and Favoritism in the Spain of Philip III, 1598-1621 (Cambridge University Press, 2000), translated into Spanish as El Duque de Lerma: Realeza y Privanza en la España de Felipe III (Marcial Pons, 2002).

His latest book, Speaking of Spain: The Evolution of Race and Nation in the Hispanic World (Harvard University Press, 2017), analyzes the long-term debate and struggles over race and nation in Spain and the Spanish world, tracing them from the late 15th century to the early 19th century. It has been translated into Spanish as Antes de España. Nación y Raza en el Mundo Hispánico, 1450-1820 (Marcial Pons, 2019). In collaboration with Professors Pedro Cardim (Universidade Nova de Lisboa) and Fernando Bouza (Universidad Complutense), Antonio Feros recently published The Iberian World, 1450-1820 (Routledge, 2019).

Antonio Feros is currently developing a three-volume history of contemporary Spain. The first volume (1939-1947) will study Spain between the end of the civil war (1939) and the end of WWII. The second volume (1947-1967) will analyze the Franco regime's attempts to institutionalize a dictatorship within a democratic Europe and in the context of the Cold War. The third volume (1968-1985) will examine the growing democratic opposition to the Franco regime and the transition towards a fully democratic country.

Prof. Feros offers a variety of undergraduate and graduate courses, all of which focus on the complexity of societies in contrast to a deterministic vision of historical evolution. His courses emphasize the need to consider ideological diversity in each society and period and to analyze past societies from a cross-cultural perspective. The themes addressed in his courses include early modern Spanish and European political, cultural, religious, and intellectual history; modern Spain; and the history of early modern European imperialism.