In his Lições de História Marítima Geral, Almeida d'Eça closely followed Mahan, both in his use of concepts and methodology, as well as in the themes central to his approach, such as Dutch dominance of the seas in the 17th century, Colbert's reforms of the French navy, and the conflicts at sea from the 18th to the early 19th century.

The subject of General Maritime History encompassed naval tactics, manoeuvring, maritime law, and the history of fishing (História Marítima, p. 5). It is worth noting that Almeida d'Eça connected his students and readers with Alfred Mahan, even translating excerpts from his classic work, The Influence of Sea Power upon History.

However, the Maritime History he taught had a much broader chronology, incorporating the entirety of Portuguese maritime history. Topics such as the School of Sagres in the 15th century were of particular interest to him. He denied the existence of a Henrican academy in Sagres, arguing that its institutionalisation was merely a legend. Even if this was a correct premise, he suggested that certain authors sought to denigrate and diminish the image of Prince Henry the Navigator. In his writings, the Infante appeared with attributes of leadership, along with exceptional qualities of organisation and tenacity, which contributed to the success of the navigations — essentially, a character who made a decisive contribution to modern times. The Infante de Sagres surrounded himself with men experienced in various disciplines pertinent to navigation. "This is what the School of Sagres was called; it was not an institute of naval science but a gathering of diverse knowledge, where everyone was both master and pupil” (O Infante D. Henrique, p. 11). Regarding the "Plan of India," Almeida d'Eça argued that Henry the Navigator was already contemplating the sphericity of the Earth and the sea route to India. However, these achievements and discoveries only became feasible through the art of navigation and the "genius" of the Portuguese, who contributed to technical progress in navigation through the adoption of flat charts, the invention of the nautical astrolabe, the determination of latitude by the Sun, the discovery of the variation of the compass needle, and efforts to calculate the value of longitude (Ibidem, p.13). This established, for the first time, an overview of the technical aspects of the Discoveries. The editions of unpublished documentary sources by Luciano Cordeiro (1883) and Sousa Viterbo (1892) were no exception.

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