Abstract

SummaryThis essay is an introduction to a special issue on ‘Liberalism in the Early Nineteenth-century Iberian World’. The essay reviews why Iberian intellectual history, particularly liberal political thought, has been neglected in English-language scholarship. It offers suggestions for the incorporation of Portuguese and Spanish language texts into the broader canon. The essay then outlines persistent debates common to the study of liberalism in both Iberian and other national contexts, in an effort to instigate a dialogue between intellectual historians of Spain and Portugal and their counterparts elsewhere. It concludes with a consideration of the geopolitical forces, cultural trends, and social conditions that encouraged the forging of transnational liberalism in the early nineteenth century.