Date of appointment: 26 september 2000.
By proposal of: V Centuries Organizational Commission.
Date of investiture: 8 june 2001.
Sponsor: Dr. Alfons Cucó Giner and Dr. Amparo Alvárez Rubio.
Emili Giralt i Raventós was born in Vilafranca del Penedès in 1927. Historian.
He graduated in 1951. Disciple of Jaume Vicens Vives, was a reader of Castilian in Durham (1954-55), professor of the Universitat de Barcelona (1959), professor of Contemporary History at the Universitat de València (1966) and, since 1971, of the University of Barcelona. He specialized in the study of population, agrarian history and social movements in the Catalan countries.
Among his studies we must highlight the French mercantile colony in Barcelona in the mid-seventeenth century (1956-59) and, in collaboration with Jordi Nadal, La population catalane from 1553 to 1717 (1960), Barcelona in 1717-1718, a model of pre-industrial society (1963) and La immigració Francesa to Mataró during the Segle XVIII (1966).
He is the author of The Studies of Agrarian History in Spain. From 1940 to 1961 (1962) and the conflict "rabassaire" and the agrarian question in Catalonia until 1936 (1964).
He published with Balcells i Termes, Els moviments socials a Catalunya, País Valencià i les Illes (1800-1939) (1967). He also published Premsa clandestina i de l'exili (1939-1976), Inventari (1977), Dos estudios sobre el País Valenciano (1978), Els inicis del Cava Mont-Ferrant: Agustí Vilaret i Centrich, 1820-1903 (1998) and , together with Jordi Nadal, Immigració i redreçament demogràfic: the French to the Catalonia dels segles XVI and XVII (2000), revised Catalan version of La population catalane from 1553 to 1717. L'immigration française et les autres facteurs de son développement (1960 ).He directed the Bibliografia dels moviments socials a Catalunya, País Valencià i les Illes (1972), El franquisme i l'oposició: a critical bibliography (1939-1975) (1981) and Romanticisme i renaixença, 1800-1860 (1995) volume four of the History of Catalan Culture.
He was director of the Center d'Estudis Històrics Internacionals of the Universitat de Barcelona (1975-1998) and of the Estudis d'Història Agrària since its foundation (1977) until the year 2000. In 1981-83 he was associate professor at the University of the Sorbonne In 1975 he entered the Institut d'Estudis Catalans, an institution he directed from 1987 to 1995.
