Contemporary Portugal: from Empire to Europe
Professor Antonio Costa Pinto, University of Lisbon
Date/Time: 24th February 2011, 17:30 - 18:30
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Professor Costa Pinto discusses Portugal’s imperial and colonial past, vital to understanding the country’s unique history. This lecture is part of the School of Modern Languages Centenary Event.
The ‘age of the masses’ was inaugurated in Portugal without the upheavals that democratic regime change brought elsewhere in interwar Europe. On the eve of the twentieth century, with its political frontiers unchanged since the late Middle Ages, Portugal was the ‘ideal’ state envisioned by liberal nationalists: culturally homogenous, with no national, ethno-cultural, religious or ethno-linguistic minorities, nor any territorial claims in Europe. Portugal’s imperial and colonial past, however, is vital to an understanding of the country’s history.António Costa Pinto is Professor of Politics and Contemporary European History at the Institute of Social Science, University of Lisbon. He holds a PhD from the European University Institute and his research interests include fascism and authoritarianism, democratisation and transitional justice, the political change in Southern Europe, and the Europe Union. His most recent publications include Who Governs Southern Europe? Regime Change and Ministerial Recruitment, 1850–2000 (2003); Contemporary Portugal: Politics, Society and Culture (2003); Contemporary Portugal Politics, Society and Culture (2003); Charisma and Fascisms in Inter-war Europe (2007); and Rethinking the Nature of Fascism (2010).
