Book | El petit imperi – Catalans en la colonització de la Guinea Espanyola

CEI-Iscte researcher Eduard Gargallo is one of the authors of the book “El petit imperi – Catalans en la colonització de la Guinea Espanyola” (in Catalan) released in March 2021, co-authored by Jordi Sant.

About the book

After two centuries of Spanish colonial rule, in 1968 Guinea Ecuatorial became an independent State. To understand the history of Guinea it is necessary to pay attention to the crucial role played by Catalan settlers during colonization. They were key players in the economic and religious fields. On the one hand, Catalan businessmen established many of the large cocoa and coffee plantations, forestry concessions and trading factories; on the other hand, the main missionary order in Guinea, the Claretians, was founded in Catalonia and most of its members were Catalan.

Beyond these issues, however, El petit Imperi, provides a wider view over the Catalan colonial experience, exploring the settlers’ way of life and ideas, as well as their relationship with the African population. Finally, the book also deals with the influence of this colonial past on Catalonia and metropolitan Catalans.

This book makes a contribution to the history of Guinea Ecuatorial, colonialism, and the analysis of minority groups within European colonizing populations.

The opinions expressed in this text represent the views only of the author and do not bind the Centre for International Studies, its management or any other researcher.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.