MADRID - Santiago Munoz Machado was named as the winner of the 2018 Spanish National Prize for History by the Spanish Ministry of Culture and Sport on Tuesday.

Munoz Machado was given the award, which carries a cash prize of 20,000 euros, for his book "Hablamos la misma lengua: Historia politica del espanol en America" (We speak the same language: a political history of the Spanish language in America).

The jury, which chose Munoz Machada's work, described it as "a history of the Spanish language in America from the conquest of the continent to independence", adding it was a "work centered on the role of Spanish in the construction of a cultural and institutional space which developed in the centuries when there was a Spanish presence (in America) and confirmed with the independent republics."

Munoz Machado, born in 1949, is a professor of Administrative Law at the Universities of Madrid, Valencia and Alcala. He is also a member of both the Spanish Royal Academy and the Royal Academy of Political and Moral Science.

He has published many works, one of which -- Report on the Spain: to rethink or destroy the State -- won him the 2013 Spanish National Essay Prize.

Created in 1981, the Spanish National Prize for History looks to recognize the best history book of the year written in Spanish by a Spanish author.