This is an ambitious and important work. Ecuador has attracted significant scholarly attention over the last three decades, and it is increasingly recognized as a critical case study for understanding core Latin American institutions and historical, political, and social processes. Yet, there are few specialist introductory research tools to support new undergraduate and graduate scholars in gaining an understanding of country-specific actors and institutions and contextualizing their own research questions. This work begins to fill that critical gap.
The volume opens with a series of maps, followed by a brief chronology of historical and political events and a 24-page introduction that provides an overview of Ecuadorian geography, demographics, history, and politics. The majority of the volume is dedicated to the dictionary entries, arranged encyclopedia-style. The entries vary in length from a few lines outlining specific actors and organizations to five-page essays on broad political and social themes. The references are followed by an appendix listing heads of state in chronological order, with a bibliographic essay and detailed thematic bibliography rounding out the volume.
To bring a reference guide of this nature together is an extraordinary undertaking, commendable in itself, and there is lots of detail here that will be helpful to both novice and veteran researchers of Ecuador. In particular, the volume has real strengths in political and military history in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries and provides a very comprehensive introduction to some of the most important leaders and personalities in these fields, as well as to the composition of different branches of the military. It is also very strong on economic and religious history, and it provides an engaging overview of cultural traditions, especially culinary, that will be of great interest to a general reader looking to learn more ahead of travel to the region.
There are some omissions and inconsistencies, though, as well as decisions around historical interpretation which limit the definitiveness of the volume. Women, indigenous people, and Afro-Ecuadorians are present in the volume, but they are treated very much as subsidiary to the main historical forces. The chronology starts in 1525 with the death of Huayna Capac and the contest for inheritance between Huáscar and Atahualpa (not even the conquest by the Inka is used as a starting point), a disappointing decision given the long history of settlement prior to the Inka and the Spanish. The institution of African slavery, which was the dominant labor form in parts of Ecuador for over 300 years, is not considered to warrant a reference entry. Even though the introduction informs us in the section on “People” that “Blacks were marginalized throughout Ecuadorian history and subject to discrimination” (5), it does not mention that this marginalization and discrimination included enslavement. Nor is the abolition of slavery in 1851—surely a signal moment for Afro-Ecuadorians as well as for the nation as a whole—listed in the chronology.
There are no separate entries for any of the main Afro-Ecuadorian political groups that emerged after 1992 to push for political and economic rights; instead, these are all squeezed into a single entry on Afro-Ecuadorians. Although coverage of Indigenous political actors is more comprehensive, engagement with lowland Indigenous groups in particular is sometimes problematic. An entry on missionary Rachel Saint praises her for convincing the Huaroni to “abandon violence within their society and murderous hostility towards outsiders” (254), with no recognition of scholarship which has highlighted how state and missionary incursion in fact amplified violence between and within indigenous groups in the Amazon. In an entry on the city of Santo Domingo de los Colorados, the T'sachila people are presented as a tourist attraction comparable to a local nature reserve: “While tourists still come to see the few remaining T'sachila people who dress in traditional costume, other attractions are the nearby nature reserves, well suited for watching butterflies and birds and fishing” (258). An entry on tsantas refers to the “pacification” of the Shuar (271).
The history of “Women” is squeezed into a one-and-a-half-page entry (less space than is dedicated to “Aviation” or “World War II,” and a quarter of the space dedicated to “Foreign Relations” or “Education”). The entry reflects on how two particular women, Manuela Sáenz and Matilde Hidalgo de Procel, exemplified the changing status of women and discusses the reforms toward gender equity embedded within the constitution of 2008. Only 15 women are granted individual entries—out of over 180 entries offering individual biographies.
Of course, it is not fair to expect any introductory reference work to be fully comprehensive, and there is much here of significant value. As I read this, I kept reflecting on how much I wished a volume like this had been available to me when I started my doctoral studies on Ecuador more than 20 years ago. As he retires, George Lauderbaugh has left a valuable gift to newer members of his field, and this work will doubtless become a foundational research tool.
