Jesús Astigarraga, Ph.D. in Economics and in History (1991, 2015), University of Zaragoza (Spain), is Professor of Political Economy at that university. He has published monographs and many chapters and articles on the Spanish Enlightenment, including, as editor, The Spanish Enlightenment Revisited (Oxford, Voltaire Foundation, 2015).

The book offers an account of the economic institutions of eighteenth century Spain, analysing their fundamental role in spreading European Enlightenment culture and in the political unification and articulation of the Spanish monarchy.