Spanish colonialism exacted a high price from its subjects, promoting economic dependency as the accompaniment of a more vital, diversified economy based on a mix of industry and agriculture. The result was a legacy of underdevelopment, domestic social inequities, and economic subordination to the North Atlantic world. This volume examines how Spanish colonial policies contributed to profound socioeconomic changes, leading to patterns of underdevelopment in the Kingdom of Quito (modern Ecuador) from 1690 to 1830.

"Clearly written and well crafted as it is, Andrien's book will become the standard work on Quito's late colonial political economy..." The Americas

"Based on extensive archival research and wide-ranging secondary sources, this clearly written and meticulously developed study is essential reading for all students of colonial Spanish America." Choice

"Andrien provides a detailed case study of the economic development of one region. Its movement from decline to prosperity to crisis, reform and stagnation. It is well researched, drawing on both Ecuadorian and Spanish archives....the book is very well written, the arguments easy to follow, and major points are clearly and emphatically made. It is an important contribution to our growing knowledge of the colonial economies of the eighteenth century." John Frederick Schwaller, H-Net Book Review

"Exceptionally well documented and thoroughly researched, this monograph is a solid statement on the presence of polynuclear economies in colonial Latin America....punctilious, exhaustive analysis....I highly recommend this thorough study." Eugenio Pinero, American Histrical Review

"It is an important contribution to our growing knowledge of the colonial economics of the eighteenth century." John Frederick Schwaller, H-Net Reviews

"Much of what is missing...regarding the colonial state's institutional and political economic influence is addressed in Kenneth Andrien's The Kingdom of Quito, 1690-1830: The State and Regjional Development. In this comprehensive study, Andrien brings to bear his own influential research and recent pathbreaking works by others. ...he finds some useful concepts in that theoretical framework,...linking peripheral areas to the global context and those placing markets at the center of economic transformation." Alfonso W. Quiroz, Latin American Research Review