In Spain's Golden Fleece, Carla Rahn Phillips and William D. Phillips, Jr., offer the first authoritative history of Spain's vital wool industry. They show how wool was crucial both to Spain's domestic income and to the flourishing European textile industries that depended on the incomparable wool of Spanish Merino sheep. The authors begin by offering a broad and longterm look at the growth, dominance, and decline of the herding economy. They explain the components of wool production, from herding to shearing to preparing the wool for market. And they examine the evolution of the woolen textile industry in Spain and the export trade in raw wool.