Ecuador’s indigenous movements have sparked worldwide interest in the past 20 years, yet little attention has been paid to the historical roots of the contemporary mobilizations. Marc Becker’s Indians and Leftists provides a much-needed perspective on the deep history of ethnic mobilization in twentieth-century Ecuador. In so doing, the book sheds new light on the relationship between rural indigenous movements and the urban left. Becker shows that such connections were decisive for the genesis, course, and consequences of indigenous mobilization. The book also serves as a kind of defense of the Ecuadorian Left. Rather than being paternalistic or assimilationist, Becker argues that leftists promoted ethnic ideals, identities, and rights in close concert with rural indigenous activists. To sustain these claims, Becker focuses attention on Ecuador’s “first national federation for and by indigenous peoples in Ecuador,” the Federación Ecuatoriana de Indios or FEI (founded in 1944 and thus preceding the better-known...

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