Abstract

This article studies the observations which John Stuart Mill collected about Spain in his writings. The aim is to analyze how one of the most important thinkers of the time valued some political Spanish events, certain aspects of socioeconomic reality, or determined features which he considered to constitute the Spanish «national character». Throughout his entire intellectual trajectory, Mill seems to have been aware of the complex and eventful life of Spanish politics. Moreover, Mill visited Spain in 1860 and captured the image of a country in a process of economic transformation, similar to the image portrayed by historians today and far from the romantic stereotypes that were so common to travel books of the 19th century.