Estudios sobre la ilustración aragonesa

Estudios Sobre la Ilustración Aragonesa. Eloy Fernández Clemente, Zaragoza: Institución “Fernández el Católico.” 2004.

Estudios Sobre la Ilustración Aragonesa (Studies in Aragonese Enlightenment)is a collection of previously published work by Eloy Fernández Clemente, professor of economic history at the University of Zaragoza in Spain. The twelve essays and one radio play script, written inSpanish between 1968 and 2003, are gathered in a single volume with the purpose of making them more accessible to general public.
In the first chapters Professor Fernández Clemente makes referenceto the fundamental linkage between economic and social reforms in Spain during the reign of Carlos III (1759-1788). As J.A. Maravall and J. Sarrailh have already suggested, the Enlightenment in Spainwas concerned very much with economics. With the support and encouragement of the government, the Spanish intellectual elite espoused a new vision of the society based on happiness of all of itscitizens. They organized numerous regional Societies of Friends of the Country and charged them with the task of studying the problems of national development. The Economic Society of Aragon, founded inZaragoza in 1776, was one of such organizations. As professor Fernández Clemente indicates, this society played a significant role in diffusing and applying the principles of the Enlightenment.
Thetext of the third chapter first appeared as an introduction to a study on the Economic Society of Aragon, published in Spanish in Zaragoza in 2003. It contains a chronological overeview of thepublications that deal with such topics as the significance of the count of Aranda's contribution to the Spanish Enlightenment, the activities of the Economic Society, the role of nobility and the clergy, andthe state of the Aragonese economy during the Elightenment.
In the forth chapter, the author makes reference to a body of writings indicative of the growing awareness of the importance of free trade...