A History of Spanish Institutions

Institutions and their history matter; and not only because they are crucial elements in explaining a country’s socio-political evolution, but also as determinant factors of economic development, wealth and prosperity.

Usually, the history of institutions has been taught the point of view of legal science, an approach that made the topic little attractive and often difficult to assimilate for students of other fields such as Economics, Business Studies, Marketing and others.

And precisely these groups are the ones that this book addresses. It presents, in a rigorous yet entertaining way the evolution of Spanish institutions the first human settlements in the peninsula to date and does so explaining the main points in a succinct, but well-contextualised form. For this purpose, each chapter combines the exposition of a given period’s historic facts with the description of its most characteristic institutions. Each chapter then complements its content by explaining the history of one notable symbol of Spain (its flag, the different coat of arms, feasts, orders, etcetera). This modular structure, together with the presentation of the information according to its degree of relevance, allows readers — depending on their specific interests and needs—, to adapt and combine the texts that compose this book as to optimise the results of their study.

“The modern didactic approach followed by the authors, their understanding of institutions in a broader sense than usual, the extraordinary work of synthesis […] has produced a basic tool for the study of this subject, one that will give students fruitful results, even if they have very heterogeneous backgrounds in Spanish history.”

Esther Valbuena