Ler História 50 / 2006
Dossier: Ways for the future: agenda under study
Jean-Frédéric Schaub
History of Europe and National HistoriesJorge Flores
Portuguese Expansion, European Expansions and Non-European Worlds in the early modern era: The state of the art
Norberta Amorim
Historical Demography and Family History. Perspectives for an integrated routeMagda Pinheiro
The biography in PortugalJosé Neves
After the «End of the History»
Studies
Maria Carlos Radich
Environment and agriculture: a question in the XIX centuryMaria Fernanda Rollo
War Inheritances: the reinforcement of autarchy and the «new paths» of economical politics
Debate
Carlos Maurício
Liberty, equality and fraternity in the beginning of the XXI century
Index (1983-2005)
Resumos
Ler História 50 / 2006
History of Europe and National HistoriesHow to build a History of Europe? This is the question to which the author searches for an answer. To achieve it, he suggests the making of a History that he qualifies as Euro-colonial, overtaking the institutionalizing History of the institutions, opposite to a History of the law, richer and more complex. For that purpose, it will be necessary to give up placing the question of Europe in terms of identity, preferring an approach in terms of process. It will also be necessary to reject positively the idea that Europe’s Europeanization may be thought without considering the World’s Europeanization.
Portuguese Expansion, European Expansions and Non-European Worlds in the early modern era: The state of the artThis article opens with a brief overview of the Portuguese expansion historiography since the late nineteenth-century, closely following the political and ideological context of each epoch. Then, having in mind the need of putting forward a new agenda in this field, it discusses the advantages and limitations of the three main current directions of research. The first stresses the connections between the history of Portuguese expansion and the history of non-European societies, while the second tends to consider the Portuguese expansion primarily as an European phenomenon and often argues in favour of the rebirth of imperial history. A «third way», mainly based on the recent works by Sanjay Subrahmanyam and Serge Gruzinski, aims to include the Portuguese expansion in a global history of the early modern world, a «connected history» that is integrative rather than comparative. Finally, we discuss the available mechanisms and tools for a more effective international projection of the Portuguese expansion as a researching and teaching area.
Historical Demography and Family History. Perspectives for an integrated route
To achieve a sedimented study of the social, it matters that the Historical Demography doesn’t give up the disciplinary application, building solid bases to the understanding of its own object and positioning towards the enrichment of other approaches, amidst them emerges the Population History, the Family History.
The fulfilment on so many issues in the agenda, either in Historical Demography, either in Family History, may require scientific projects more ambitious, gathering investigators teams on defined sets of problems, which should share with all the scientific community not only their results but also their databases, if systematically organized.
The biographie in PortugalThe aims of this paper are to assess the progress made by biographical essays in the last ten years in Portugal and to suggest some lines of development for the future. During this period biography was able to bring the work of professional historians to a broader public. The twenty-century, political leaders, writers or artist are the main subject.
Nevertheless, women’s share as well as less known artists, politicians or common people seem to be the directions with less expression. We can also emphasize that the deconstruction of the unity of the personality and the understanding of its construction during a lifetime in a permanent negotiation with social environment are yet to make its appearance in those biographies.
After the «End of the History»In the last years, while European communitarian founds benefited Portugal and while certain national-state policies were being developed, some young historians started their own personal research projects. Some of these research projects have already reached their ending moment and some others are still being developed. Our main concern in this article is to look for historiographic tendencies underlining those research projects; by the way we compare the PhD thesis of this group of young historians with those that were written by older historians – we worked out statistically the Portuguese PhD thesis on History since 1972. After doing this work we advance some interpretations concerning the achieved results, crossing them with some observations respecting the author personal relation with History, he who is a young historian who started to care about History during the 90’s.
Environment and agriculture: a question in the XIX centuryIn the second half of the XIX century, Agronomy tried to find the relationship between the climate, the ground and the agrarian production. The first step consisted in studying the climate and the ground. The second one deduced the convenient kinds of agrarian productions, for such environment. Nevertheless, the ways proposed to Portuguese agriculture were sometimes opposed to these deductions, following the leads of the economical and social context.
War Inheritances: the reinforcement of autarchy and the «new paths» of economical politicsThe effects of the War led to the reassertion of the intent of self-sufficiency and to the definition of the main bets of the Fifties – production of hydroelectricity, development of transportation, increase of farm production and the search of a certain way of industrialization – in close association with the reinforcement of the presence of the Government in the economic life. The statement, essential part of the economic model that would predominate until the end of the decade, included also the participation of the colonies by the enlargement of the concept of autarchy, in order to comprehend them as integrant part of the national territory.
Solved some hesitations and overtaken several deadlocks, the nation of the post-War, engaged in a growing process of external opening and of the internationalization of its economy, started a process of economic and social development, sharing the environment of prosperity that shaped the international conjuncture of the next two decades.