David Pretel

David Pretel is a historian specialising in global history, science, and technology studies, and the history of Latin American commodities, with an ever-increasing interest in the role of empires in the globalization of intellectual property rights. Dr. Pretel has held teaching and research positions at several universities, including the European University Institute in Florence, the Institute of Historical Research at the University of London, El Colegio de México, and Pompeu Fabra University. He was educated at Universidad Autónoma de Madrid and the University of Cambridge and has spent time as a visiting scholar at the universities of Bristol, Nottingham, UCLA, Linköping, El Salvador and Havana.

Dr. Pretel’s first book, Institutionalising Patents in Nineteenth-Century Spain (Palgrave-Macmillan), examined the development of the Spanish patent system in the years 1826–1902, providing a fundamental reassessment of its evolution in an international context.  He is a co-editor of, and contributor to, the volumes The Caribbean and the Atlantic World Economy (Palgrave-Macmillan, 2015) and Technology and Globalisation (Palgrave-Macmillan, 2018). His recent publications include articles in the journals History of Technology, Historia Mexicana, Business History, Latin America in Economic History, and Economic History Research.

His works, CV, and other details can be found on his website.