My name is Jonathan (M. Finegold Catalán), and I am a citizen of both the United States of America and the Kingdom of Spain. I come from an eclectic background: my mother is Spanish, while my father is a mixture of German (mother's side), Irish (mother's side), and Israeli (father's side). I have lived the majority of my life in the United States; roughly, two-thirds have been lived in the United States, while the remaining third I have lived in Spain (including between 2007–2008). The majority of my mother's side is conservative, while my father's family has a healthy mix of progressives and conservatives. All the same, much of my mother's family is staunchly patriotic towards Spain and parts of my father's family are firmly Zionist. I am a "die-hard" libertarian, borderline anarcho-capitalist; I am a relatively frequent contributor to Mises Daily, a daily online libertarian publication (see my archives here).
I became an official editor of Wikipedia on December 12 2005. I am not sure what kind of edits I made early on, but the first two major articles I worked on were Second Battle of Kharkov and T-26. I worked on both until nominating them as featured article candidates. As my first major article, Second Battle of Kharkov did not make the cut—at first, poor citations, and later poor prose and insufficient citations. My first featured article was T-26, featured on January 15 2007—not bad, only just over a year since my official registration. Nevertheless, I went on a long "wiki-break" thereafter, returning only by May 2008. Between May 2008 and January 2009 I worked on and successfully promoted thirteen articles to featured article class. These promotions, as well as a featured picture and a featured topic, earned me two coveted awards: the WikiChevrons with Oak Leaves and Military Historian of the Year (2008). Unfortunately, I burnt myself out and between February 2009 and September 2010 I embarked upon a hiatus.
This long wiki-break has allowed me to re-orient my interests. I moved on from my former hobby of military history to my profession, economics. I return to Wikipedia hoping to synthesize the two—focusing on the economics of the Austrian school of thought and Spanish military history. While planning to take it slow for the remainder of 2010, I hope that 2011 can be as fruitful for me as 2008—my objective: twenty-four featured articles. I also plan to partake more in the behind-the-scenes work of WikiProjectMilitary History—especially peer reviews, good article reviews, and a-class reviews.
I also write at Economic Thought, a blog that deals with economics, political science, and history.
Currently Reading: Reisman, George (1998). Capitalism: A Complete and Integrated Understanding of the Nature and Value of Human Economic Life. Laguna Hills, California: TSJ Books. ISBN978-1-931089-25-8.
UStankParis-edit1.jpg:(Featured on 19 November 2008; An M-8 "Greyhound" armored scout car of the US Army passes under the Arc de Triomphe after the liberation of Paris in August 1944.)
