Perspectives on Portuguese History provides a rich and complex picture of Portugal through various lenses, underscoring the tensions between tradition and modernity, authoritarianism and the desire for change, and national pride and the challenges of a globalized world.
The book highlights the long shadow of the Salazar regime, the enduring legacy of its history and culture, the transformative impact of the Lisbon earthquake and its reconstruction, the struggles and ultimate end of its colonial empire, and the evolving perspectives on its past as seen through the eyes of historian Kenneth Maxwell.
Carlos Gaspar, senior researcher at the Portuguese Institute of International Relations (IPRI NOVA) and political advisor to the first three elected Presidents of the Portuguese Republic between 1977 and 2006 commented on the book:
“Kenneth Maxwell is the doyen of historians of the revolution, decolonization and Portuguese democracy and as such was honored at the conferences held in Portugal and Brazil to commemorate the 50th anniversary of 25 April.
In 2024, Maxwell travelled to Brazil, to the United States and to Portugal to give three keynote lectures at three different occasions. The first was done in the University of São Paulo (USP) and focused on the international dimension of the Portuguese revolution in 1974.
He would return to that theme but explore additional dimensions in his keynote presentation at an October 2024 conference in Lisbon.
And in between, he would return to Harvard University and participate in an international colloquium on Luso-Brazilian Art and Literature. His lectures focused on a subject which encompassed how the rebuilding of Lisbon after the great earthquake in 1755 fit into to the rebuilding of two other greater European cities, namely London and Paris.
This book contains the full text of these lectures along with associated materials regarding the conferences themselves.”
About the Authors
Dr. Robbin F. Laird is a long-time analyst of global defense issues. He has worked in the U.S. government and several think tanks, including the Center for Naval Analyses and the Institute for Defense Analyses. He is a frequent op-ed contributor to the defense press, and he has written several books on international security issues. He is a member of the Board of Contributors of Breaking Defense and publishes there on a regular basis. He is a research fellow with The Sir Richard Williams Foundation. He is also based in Paris, France, and he regularly travels throughout Europe and conducts interviews with leading policymakers in the region.
Kenneth Maxwell is a prominent historian and scholar of Latin America, with a distinguished academic and institutional leadership career. He was the founding Director of the Brazil Studies Program at Harvard University’s David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies (2006–2008) and served as a History professor at Harvard (2004–2008). Earlier, he directed the Latin America Program at the Council on Foreign Relations (1989–2004) and held the inaugural Nelson and David Rockefeller Chair in Inter-American Studies.
Maxwell taught at major universities including Yale, Princeton, Columbia, and the University of Kansas. At Columbia, he founded and directed the Camões Center for the Portuguese-speaking World. He also served as Program Director at the Tinker Foundation and was the Western Hemisphere book reviewer for Foreign Affairs (1993–2004).
He contributed regularly to The New York Review of Books and was a columnist for Folha de São Paulo (2007–2015) and O Globo (2015 onward). Maxwell was a Herodotus Fellow at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, a Guggenheim Fellow, and has held advisory and board positions at the Tinker Foundation, Luso-American Foundation, Brazil Foundation, and Human Rights Watch/Americas.
He earned his degrees from St. John’s College, Cambridge (B.A., M.A.), and Princeton University (M.A., Ph.D.).
Book Details
Title: Perspectives on Portuguese History: The 2024 Lectures by Professor Kenneth Maxwell
Authors: Robbin Laird with Kenneth Maxwell
Publisher: Second Line of Defense
Series: Book 1 of 3 | Portugal and Brazil Confront the Contemporary World
Publication Date: May 15, 2025
Language: English
Paperback: 292 pp
Available @ Amazon.com
