The sociologist Amando de Miguel, considered the father of modern sociology in Spain, has died today in Madrid at the age of 86 after a long illness, reported Libertad Digital, a medium in which he collaborated. His funeral chapel, according to EFE, will be installed in the Madrid funeral home on the M-30 and will be open from 10:00 on Monday morning.
Professor at the Complutense University of Madrid, he published numerous books and had a constant participation in the Spanish public debate since the eighties. During the Franco regime, Amando de Miguel was sentenced by a War Council for criticizing a homily by a military priest, and in 1981 he left Catalonia for fear of reprisals after promoting a manifesto for equal linguistic rights.
Born in Pereruela (Zamora) on January 20, 1937, Amando de Miguel was a well-known figure during the Spanish Transition. In the 1970 academic year he won the chair of Sociology at the Faculty of Economic Sciences of Valencia by competitive examination and later moved to the Central University of Barcelona. There, in 1971, he appeared in Barcelona before a War Council for an article published in the magazine "Temas" in which he addressed the homily of a military priest. De Miguel was sentenced to six months of house arrest in Barcelona.
Amando de Miguel was co-author and signer of the "Manifesto for the equality of linguistic rights in Catalonia". Fearing reprisals, since the appearance of said manifesto, de Miguel left Barcelona in 1981 to teach classes at the Faculty of Sociology and Political Sciences of the Complutense University of Madrid.
In 1987 he published "Cyclical Spain" and in 1988 "La España oculta, la economía submerged", for which he won the V Espasa Mañana Essay Prize. A year later, in April 1989, he presented in Madrid "La ambición del César", a critical biography of Felipe González, written jointly with the journalist José Luis Gutiérrez.
On July 10, 1995, he resigned as a director of RTVE, a position for which he was elected by Parliament at the proposal of the PP in November 1994. In the letter in which he announced his resignation, Amando de Miguel stated that he had verified " with pain" that during his months of activity as a director, RTVE had not come "in the least bit closer to the ideal of independence, pluralism and neutrality" that this public service requires.
Throughout his professional career, the sociologist published some forty books of sociology essays, among which are: "Sociology of Francoism" (1974); "The heritage of Francoism" (1976); "Forty million Spaniards, forty years later" (1976); "University, factory for the unemployed" (1979) co-authored with Jaime Martín Moreno; "The beautiful intellectuals" (1980); "The crystal ball" (1980); and "Ten errors about the Spanish population" (1982). With the title "Manual of the perfect sociologist", in April 1997 he published a new book that was intended to be a reference work for students and scholars of sociology.
