Traditional historiography has tended to disregard and even deny Spain's role in the Enlightenment, banishing the country to a benighted geographical periphery. In The Spanish Enlightenment revisited a team of experts overturns the myth of the 'dark side of Europe' and examines the authentic place of Spain in the intellectual economy of the Enlightenment. Contributors to this book explore how institutional and social changes in eighteenth-century Spain sharpened the need for modernisation. Examination of major constitutional and social initiatives, such as the development of new scientific projects and economic societies, the reform of criminal law, and a re-evaluation of the country's colonial policies, reveals how ideas, principles and practices from the wider European Enlightenment are adapted for the country's specific context. Through detailed analysis authors investigate: the evolution of public opinion, and the Republic of letters; the growth of political economy as an intellectual discipline; the transmission and reception of an Enlightenment discourse in the Spanish Empire; Spain's role in shaping a modern conception of the natural sciences. The portrait of a demarginalised, modernising and enlightened Spain emerges clearly from this book; in so doing, it opens up new avenues of research both within the history of the pan-European Enlightenment, and in colonial studies.

Adam Smith's An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations was the product of the rich tradition of the Scottish Enlightenment but the book's fame immediately spread across the whole of Europe. This book looks at the long journey of Smith's ideas from Scotland to peninsular Spain, reconstructing in detail the reception, adaptation, interpretation, and application of Smith's central concepts from 1777 up to 1840. In light of methodological advances during the last two decades in the history of economic thought and the studies on the late Spanish Enlightenment and early Liberalism, the book tackles a series of significant issues and gaps in the historiography. In particular: this book sheds new light on the role of France as an intermediate step as the ideas spread from Britain southwards; the analysis draws not just on translations but also handwritten materials, book reviews, syntheses, summaries, plagiarism and rebuttals; a wide range of methods of dissemination are considered including the printing press and periodicals, parliamentary debates, academic chairs and societies; the role of individual translators and agents is given due prominence; the political interpretations of the Wealth of Nations and the ways in which the book was incorporated into the work of Spanish economists in the decades following publication are also considered. This book marks a significant contribution to the literature on the reception of Smith's Wealth of Nations, studies of the Spanish Enlightenment and history of economic thought more broadly.