Manuel Lucena Giraldo is a Researcher at the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC) and Director of the Chair of Spanish and Hispanic Studies at the universities of the Community of Madrid. He was a visiting professor at Harvard University, Tufts University (Boston), Pontifical Xaverian University (Colombia), University of Los Andes (Chile and Colombia) and St. Anotny’s College, Oxford University. He has been an education attaché at the Spanish Embassy of Colombia. He is a member of the advisory board of “National Geographic” on global history. Lucena is a member of the Colombian Academy of History and of the European Academy. His latest book, written together with Felipe Fernández-Armesto, is Un imperio de ingenieros. Una historia del imperio español a través de sus infraestructuras (Taurus, 2022).