"Lazy, Improvident People": Myth and Reality in the Writing of Spanish History

Since the early modern era, historians and observers of Spain, both within the country and beyond it, have identified a peculiarly Spanish disdain for work, especially manual labor, and have seen it as a primary explanation for that nation's alleged failure to develop like the rest of Europe. In "Lazy, Improvident People" the historian Ruth MacKay examines the origins of this deeply ingrained historical prejudice and cultural stereotype.

MacKay finds these origins in the ilustrados, the Enli...