The growth of serious interest during the last fifty years in the scholastic contribution to the development of economic thought has been very marked, and no-where more so than in the history of economic thought in Spain. This book begins in the Middle Ages and traces the effect on business practice and on thought of the presence of the Christian, Islamic and Jewish communities who lived side by side in the Peninsula. It shows how the economics of Plato and Aristotle were transmitted by way of Toledo to the Latin West.

In the second half of the book the author considers 'Salamancan' ideas and the views of the political economists and 'projectors' who preceded the Enlightenment. At the same time she surveys the present state of the subject and offers bibliographical guidance for the reader.