David Ringrose here re-examines the history of Spain in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. He challenges the pessimism of prevailing assumptions about Spanish history, and its conventional separation into pre- and post-Napoleonic eras. Spain, Europe, and the 'Spanish Miracle', 1700-1900 also questions the importance of the empire for Spain's own economy, suggesting instead that Spain evolved as part of Europe; indeed, some of the recently documented modernisation of the nineteenth century was already well under way in the eighteenth. In addition, the emergence of a governing élite closely tied to provincial society is placed in the context of traditional networks of patronage based upon close-knit family ties. Such a perspective makes the transitions of the 1930s and 1970s easier to explain. This important and challenging book will change our understanding of the history of modern Spain.