Professor Leandro Prados de la Escosura is one of the leading economic historians in Europe. His vast scientific production is rooted in an early self-commitment to providing empirical evidence on the Spanish economic development over history. Such a pledge started to be fulfilled almost four decades ago with a book on Spain’s growth and backwardness (De imperio a nación, Crecimiento y atraso económico en España (1780–1930), Madrid: Alianza, 1988). Over the years, Professor Prados de la Escosura’s fruitful research has been broadening to cover the last seven centuries, reaching the end of the Spanish Reconquista (late thirteenth century) as a starting point. Hitherto, a myriad of papers, journal articles, and book chapters have come into view, either co-authored or as individual works. This new volume is mostly derived from them, whose data have been carefully revised and updated.

Instead of viewing Spain’s economic development from a chronological perspective, the author focuses on two main subjects. Part I deals with Spain’s economic growth and its distribution (Chapters 2 to 5). Prados de la Escosura’s main contribution on this matter is his attempt to explain why preindustrial Spain, as a frontier economy that did not match the prevalent Malthusian interpretation, was not able to achieve long-term gains in income per capita (Chapter 2). To do so, he focuses on three historical pieces of evidence: (a) the exceptional behavior of Spain’s income per capita and economic inequality after the Black Death—at odds with what happened in north-western Europe; (b) the heavy fiscal cost of maintaining the Spanish European possessions during the Early Modern Age, together with a long-lasting synchronized evolution of per capita income (i.e., agricultural output per worker) and population (i.e., labor force); and (c) the Napoleonic Wars of the early nineteenth century gave way to a complex transition towards a liberal state, which would have allowed a more efficient resource allocation and, after all, a sustained economic growth. Lastly, Chapters 3 to 5 are devoted to diving into topics of modern economic growth that have provoked recent debates among economic historians. Here the author provides new evidence on capital accumulation, productivity growth, and inequality.

In Part II (Chapters 6 to 8), Professor Prados de la Escosura copes with the effects of Spain’s integration into the global economy. A thorough analysis of its external sector, its economy, and its resource allocation between 1778 and 1820 leads him to hold that the independence of the Spanish American vice-royalties did affect the Peninsula’s economy, although mostly in the short run (Chapter 6). What were the ultimate causes? He suggests looking into the intrinsic problems of the Spanish manufactures as well as the treasury’s frail fiscal base. Nonetheless, in aggregate terms, the emancipation did not seem to be as negative as the literature has presumed. What is more, such an event prompted the arrival of liberal ideas which, in turn, would have contributed to the economic and social modernization of the Peninsula. This is what leads Prados de la Escosura to propose the need to deepen into the institutional implications of the Spanish American emancipation. A piece of evidence seems to be the reorientation of Spain’s competitive sectors such as commercialized agriculture towards the industrializing north-western European markets. The evidence on the evolution of terms of trade relative to Britain over two hundred years shows that the welfare of those employed in such sectors improved until the twentieth century (Chapter 7). This challenges the traditional and negative view of Spain’s economic specialization on exportable primary products during British industrialization. Better put, the fact that Spain lagged behind the Western European economies in terms of living standards cannot be blamed on such a specialization pattern.

Furthermore, the author’s inquiry casts some doubts on the widespread belief that Spain’s international integration negatively affected its economic growth (Chapter 8). By reconstructing the country’s balance of payments on current account, Prados de la Escosura points to an inverse correlation between the latter and Spain’s growth during the first globalization (1850–1913). If a current account deficit—in the form of a new inflow of foreign capital—allowed a rise in domestic demand and improved Spain’s economic performance between 1850 and 1890, a surplus on the current account—derived from a “sudden stop” in foreign investment—seemed to do the opposite between 1890 and 1913. In other words, had the current account deficit not existed, the Spanish economy would not have grown that fast during the second half of the nineteenth century.

In sum, what scholars, lecturers, and students can find in this volume is an extraordinary quantitative compilation that offers long-term trends of key economic variables and addresses many of the current issues on Spain and Europe’s economic history. This Millennial View indeed marks the high point of Professor Prados de la Escosura’s long, intense, and dynamic trajectory.