Hurtado’s books, listed below, compile his research, analyses and reflections in a variety of social sciences over the last 50 years. He has devoted most of his attention to three areas: Ecuador’s realities and issues, the problems of governance in democracy, and the role of cultural values in national development.
He began his studies on the country’s economic, social and political problems with the publication of Dos mundos superpuestos: ensayo de diagnóstico de la realidad ecuatoriana (1969). This pioneering book appeared at a time in which there were no other studies of that kind. He later provided a more in-depth analysis in El poder político en el Ecuador (1977), which examined the processes that had marked the history of the country from the days of the Conquest until the 1970s. In writing about this social science classic, the journal The Americas Review (Arlington, Virginia) said: “If a scholar or a librarian had to choose just one English book on Ecuador for the Latin America shelf, Political Power in Ecuador should be the one.” Other aspects of national realities were included in La organización popular en el Ecuador, Deuda y desarrollo en el Ecuador contemporáneo, Los costos del populismo, Ecuador entre dos siglos and Dictaduras del Siglo XXI: Venezuela, Bolivia, Nicaragua y Ecuador.
The virtues of democracy, the difficulties it has had in taking root in Ecuador and the reforms necessary to improve governance are analyzed in the books Democracia y crisis, Política democrática, Gobernabilidad y reforma constitucional, Una constitución para el futuro and Dictaduras del siglo XXI: el caso ecuatoriano (21st-Century Dictatorships: The Ecuadorian Case).
In the mid-1990s, Hurtado proposed the hypothesis that Ecuador’s backwardness might be due to cultural causes and not only to external factors, deficient political institutions and problematic economic and social structures. The historical research that he conducted to demonstrate this by exploring the habits, ideas, attitudes, beliefs and practices of colonial society and the republican era can be found in Las costumbres de los ecuatorianos (Portrait of a Nation: Culture and Progress in Ecuador).
He has made three major contributions to sociological and political thought: the conception of instruments of analysis compatible with the realities under study, at a time when the theories of historical materialism and dialectical materialism have dogmatically been imposed in academia; the introduction of cultural issues into the debate on the causes of Ecuador’s delayed development; and the definition of the political reforms needed to improve governance in democracy.
Hurtado’s editors regard him as the most widely read Ecuadorian author. El poder politico en el Ecuador, Las costumbres de los ecuatorianos, Dictaduras del siglo XXI and Ecuador entre dos siglos, were all best-sellers in the years in which they came out and continue on the shelves of the Ecuadorian bookstores.
He began his studies on the country’s economic, social and political problems with the publication of Dos mundos superpuestos: ensayo de diagnóstico de la realidad ecuatoriana (1969). This pioneering book appeared at a time in which there were no other studies of that kind. He later provided a more in-depth analysis in El poder político en el Ecuador (1977), which examined the processes that had marked the history of the country from the days of the Conquest until the 1970s. In writing about this social science classic, the journal The Americas Review (Arlington, Virginia) said: “If a scholar or a librarian had to choose just one English book on Ecuador for the Latin America shelf, Political Power in Ecuador should be the one.” Other aspects of national realities were included in La organización popular en el Ecuador, Deuda y desarrollo en el Ecuador contemporáneo, Los costos del populismo, Ecuador entre dos siglos and Dictaduras del Siglo XXI: Venezuela, Bolivia, Nicaragua y Ecuador.
The virtues of democracy, the difficulties it has had in taking root in Ecuador and the reforms necessary to improve governance are analyzed in the books Democracia y crisis, Política democrática, Gobernabilidad y reforma constitucional, Una constitución para el futuro and Dictaduras del siglo XXI: el caso ecuatoriano (21st-Century Dictatorships: The Ecuadorian Case).
In the mid-1990s, Hurtado proposed the hypothesis that Ecuador’s backwardness might be due to cultural causes and not only to external factors, deficient political institutions and problematic economic and social structures. The historical research that he conducted to demonstrate this by exploring the habits, ideas, attitudes, beliefs and practices of colonial society and the republican era can be found in Las costumbres de los ecuatorianos (Portrait of a Nation: Culture and Progress in Ecuador).
He has made three major contributions to sociological and political thought: the conception of instruments of analysis compatible with the realities under study, at a time when the theories of historical materialism and dialectical materialism have dogmatically been imposed in academia; the introduction of cultural issues into the debate on the causes of Ecuador’s delayed development; and the definition of the political reforms needed to improve governance in democracy.
Hurtado’s editors regard him as the most widely read Ecuadorian author. El poder politico en el Ecuador, Las costumbres de los ecuatorianos, Dictaduras del siglo XXI and Ecuador entre dos siglos, were all best-sellers in the years in which they came out and continue on the shelves of the Ecuadorian bookstores.
Book List:
- Dictaduras del Siglo XXI: Venezuela, Bolivia, Nicaragua y Ecuador. Penguin Random House, 2021.
- Ecuador entre dos siglos. Penguin Random House, 2017.
- XXIst-Century Dictadorships: The Ecuadorian Case. Interamerican Institute for Democracy, 2013.
- Dictaduras del Siglo XXI: el caso ecuatoriano. Paradiso Editores, 2012.
- Portrait of a Nation: Culture and progress in Ecuador. Madison Books, 2010.
- Las costumbres de los ecuatorianos. Planeta, 2007; Penguin Random House, 2018.
- Los costos del populismo. Cordes, 2006.
- Deuda y desarrollo en el Ecuador contemporáneo. Planeta, 2001.
- Una constitución para el futuro. Feso, 1998.
- Gobernabilidad y reforma constitucional. Corporación Editora Nacional, 1993.
- Política democrática. Corporación Editora Nacional y Feso, 1990.
- La dictadura civil. Feso, 1988.
- La victoria del No. Feso, 1986.
- Democracia y crisis. Sendip y Cordes, 1984-1985.
- O poder político no Ecuador. Paz e Terra, 1981.
- Political Power in Ecuador. University of New Mexico Press, 1980.
- El poder político en el Ecuador. Pontificia Universidad Católica, 1977.
- La organización popular en el Ecuador. Inedes, 1974.
- Dos mundos superpuestos. Inedes, 1969.