La Generalitat de Catalunya en temps de Felip II. Política, administració i territori

2004. Pròleg d'Ernest Belenguer, 332 pp.

In this book there is a lot of work, good work, in a situation where the fight for power lead by the monarchy to take control of Catalonia which is taking more and more power, money and strength is significant. And that is what truly interests history. However, Pérez Latre, not content to just approach an almost unknown period and to do it so greatly, he presents in his book an impeccable outline and a beautiful appendix. In the first part, he studies the protagonists of power in Catalonia: he discovers what the consistory is, as well as the consolidation of the ‘Juntes de Braços’ and the creation of advisory committees of those like the ‘Divuitenes’. Meanwhile, he shows how the ‘Diputació del General’ intervened politically: a Catalonia who each time defends more the territory and opposes to the incremented petitions of the monarchy; a council that acts in an increasingly large area that makes it, without a doubt, the strongest Catalan institution in the country. To completely prove this, in the second part Pérez Latre analyses rigorously the administrative and fiscal growth of Catalonia. In other words: he studies political and economic aspects in this institution, an institution that has some men at it service and which explains a myriad of issues from the selection and control of officers to their social origin and the work they play.