Portugal, a Perspective on its History

[The book] is an attempt at synthesis, generally well-achieved, that can contribute to a global vision of the history of Portuguese society and culture, necessary for ordinary individuals who seek to understand and explain the time and effort they are part of. In recent decades, how many generations have passed through schools and high schools studying the history of Portugal more to justify the present and memorize "glorious dates and names" than to understand the real fabric that, by amalgamating people, land, and things, has specifically characterized our days for millennia?

How many generations were forced to view Portuguese history almost as a "creation" of kings, princes, or "other notables of this kingdom," denying them an understanding of the complexity of the social process, almost always in the name of providentialist and messianic conceptions with which collective interventions were sought to be limited? How many generations were "forced" to view "their" history as something tedious and uninteresting when the important thing was, precisely, to make the knowledge of Portuguese history itself a component of each individual's right to an active citizenship?