La España de Richard Ford

Résumé

The objective of the article is to analyse which economic vision of Spain did the English traveller Richard Ford project in the mid-nineteenth century: an anomaly in economic issues or a country with the same problems as any other backward country? Thanks to his successful travel guide, Ford attracted the attention of the British to Spain, focusing on the exotic image of a different, exceptional, and non-European country. To achieve this, he purposely left out the Spain that was transforming and instead focused on the more romantic traits of its history, monuments, traditions, costumes and folklore. However, when he conducted brief observations of the Spanish economy, instead of describing an exceptional country, he highlighted the problems of any backward country, but not a stagnant one. He unintentionally transmitted the efforts of the Spaniards to reduce the distance with the more advanced nations, like any other European country of the period lagging in the process of industrialization. Spain, therefore, was in fact a country "for the political economist": Just like Adam Smith had inquired into the nature and causes of the wealth of nations in Great Britain, Ford was able to analyse the obstacles to prosperity in Spain.