Awarded the Jaume Vicens Vives Prize by the Spanish Association of Economic History, this study analyses the development of the Spanish domestic market from 1650 to 1800, which transformed the country from a pseudocolonial territory, politically and economically dependent on its European neighbours, to a significant European power.
The Emergence of a National Market in Spain, 1650-1800 places Spain firmly in a European context, arguing that the origins of a sophisticated economy must be understood through the complex diplomacy of the period, namely the competition between Britain and France for dominance in the Iberian peninsula. It was in response to this rivalry that the Spanish state actively promoted the conditions for economic development in the 18th century, aided by autonomous commercial networks of Catalan merchants, Navarrese tradesmen and migrant French businessmen.
This original interpretation by one of Spain's leading economic historians, available in English for the first time, is indispensable reading for students and scholars of Spanish history.
Professor Pérez Sarrion's book is the product of a very serious, comprehensive and appealing research on the formation of the Spanish domestic market. It breaks with a strong tradition of regional history much present among Spanish historians and instead gives an overview of the whole country. It deals with crucial aspects, such as the abolition and redefinition of internal fiscal frontiers in a composite monarchy as it evolved towards a proto-national state. More importantly, it looks at a factor usually neglected in the literature and which might have been crucial in many countries on Europe's periphery : the role of external actors, in this case France and Britain, and their interest in the rise of a homogeneous economic space. The author does this not so much by looking at trade, but by studying the international and inter-regional migrations and social networks. Pérez Sarrión also deals with a crucial problem in the history of Spain: the social and economic articulation of a nation state's space. He does so by rightly maintaining a strictly historical perspective. This is the backbone of the most important political debate in Spain today, increasing the book's interest.
