Barcelona Llibres

This new anthology offers a chance to look further at the life and work of Francesc Pi i Margall, the most important and original contemporary peninsular political thinker we have had, based on his comprehension of three key aspects: federalism, socialism and the colonial question.

While these days Francesc Pi i Margall is mainly known for having held the presidency for a little over a month during the First Spanish republic, he was also the main leader of the republican far left, a prolific writer and a tireless promoter of the federal cause. His work gives us access to a wide range of experiences, topics and social processes in the history of Spain, notably including attempts to completely turn around, through republicanism and federalism, the construction of the liberal state, the explicitly socialist dimension of democracy and the contexts of war and anti-imperial revolution. In short, his work delves us into the often-defeated attempts to completely reorganise the political, administrative and economic relationships that had consolidated the despotism of the dominant classes over the course of the 19th century.

Drawing on the fact two centuries have now passed since the birth of this apostle of democratic republicanism, this book brings together a selection of texts aimed at showing the evolution and vivacity of Pi i Margall thinking. Most of them had not been edited since they were first published and nearly all of them are offered translated into Catalan for the first time. In addition, the anthology includes a new introductory study by Xavier Granell and Jaume Montés, plus an epilogue by the historian Xavier Domènech, placing us in the social and political reality of when Pi i Margall lived and wrote, as well is in his subsequent legacy. L’hidra del federalisme, a derogatory name for people who, like Pi i Margall, wanted to do away with all injustices, offers a chance to reflect on the problems of the present through the struggles of the past.