In La revolución política, Jaime Rodríguez builds on his extensive earlier work on the independence era, this time focusing exclusively on the Kingdom of Quito. Therefore it is not surprising to see familiar questions and arguments arise here. For example, one of his main assertions is that independence upheavals in the Kingdom of Quito did not constitute an anticolonial movement, but rather they were part of a larger political revolution going on in the Hispanic world that dissolved the Spanish monarchy (p. 16). However, Rodríguez has enriched and deepened recurring themes with careful attention to Ecuadorian archival materials that few (if any) scholars have previously consulted. The resulting book presents a richly textured narrative aimed at both scholarly and (within Ecuador) general audiences.
Rodríguez presents the events of this period as complex and multilayered, involving conflict and negotiation between the Americas and Spain and among competing elite groups within...
