From colonies to young republics : independence to the 1850s -- Establishing an unsettling relationship : the 1850s to the 1890s -- The railroad age : the 1890s to the 1920s -- Economic collapse and war : the 1920s to the 1940s -- The Cold War in Ecuador : the 1940s to the 1960s -- Tuna, oil, and trouble : the 1960s to the 1980s -- Democratization and neoliberalism : the 1980s to the present