ABSTRACT
Studies of the reception of The Wealth of Nations (WN) in Spain have aroused indisputable interest from academics since the 1950s. From that point onwards they have been informed by advances made in the history of economic thought field, on the one hand, and in the late Enlightenment and early Spanish Liberalism, on the other. From a chronological perspective three distinct phases can be identified: (1) the 25 years following the 1957 publication of R.S. Smith’s ground-breaking study of the WN in Spain and Hispanic America; (2) the fertile decade of the 1990s, when what is currently deemed the mainstream interpretation was defined, and (3) the last 20 years, during which the “Spanish Smith” has been somewhat neglected in academic circles.
