Hostos, Eugenio MaríA De (1839–1903)

Eugenio María de Hostos was one of the founders of sociology and legal sociology in Latin America. Born in Mayagüez, Puerto Rico, he died in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic. He studied law at the Central University of Madrid, although he quit his studies short of graduation in 1868. He was critical of the shortcomings of Spanish republicanism and liberalism, with which he had been actively involved.

Hostos then embarked on what would be a lifelong intellectual and political pilgrimage through Latin America. He was a strong advocate of ending the lingering conditions of colonialism in America, which he referred to as a “sociological condition” that served as a major obstacle to the effective realization of republican political ideals. His Tratado de Sociología(Treatise on Sociology) was the ...