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THE TEAM
CONTACT
In the field of economic history, he researched the application and validity (or anachronism) of the key theories then in use. Suffice to mention the theory on the industrialisation process, inspired by Schumpeter, that he would perfect by applying it to the Portuguese reality where commercial depressions, the driver of technical innovation, played a key role. The outcome of this analysis was the explanatory process – that the Portuguese citizen sought to understand in view of the frustrations and blockades in the growth and development of his homeland – that would be successful in Catalonia (as concluded by Pierre Vilar and Jordi Nadal). And this is not all.
Theoretical depth does not mean that erudition, the basic tool of the craft, is undervalued. New archival fonds are open to exploration. In his Preface to Prix e monnaies au Portugal 1750-1850 – second issue of the collection “Prix – Monnaies – Conjonctures”, Lucien Febvre, bordering on irony and admiration, writes: “il ne fait pas bon, avec lui, se tromper d’une journée dans la chronologie, ou négliger l’apport d’une brochure passée inaperçue.” Magalhães Godinho, admirably mastering the monetary issues of the Middle Ages (as is clear in his thesis), boldly marches ahead to the 18th and 19th centuries, clarifying not only the price-money connection, such as the industrialisation problems and the problems of the Portuguese market, but also providing an overview that comprehends Brazil, Africa, and Asia.
The economy of the Portuguese empire, originating from his 1959 thesis, is first and foremost the history of a choice, the origins of a course doomed to failure. By connecting the disconnected and unveiling the hidden, the Portuguese society moved towards a precocious mercantilisation which would eventually reject the modernity to which it had portentously contributed. Determining the origins of this blockade is the core of his Os Descobrimentos e a Economia Mundial (1963-1971) [Discoveries and the World Economy (1963-1971], in which this commercial network emerges on a transoceanic scale, primarily geared towards the study of money (an issue worthy of further research). But that is not all. From production to consumption, exotic products are closely monitored, and political history as well as social and cultural history are intertwined in admirable explanatory cohesion. The empire, spaces, society, men; also, the original inhabitants of the Canary Islands (the Guanches), the Blacks from Africa, the Hindustani, the Amerindian, the Indonesian, the Chinese, the Japanese, all those with whom the Portuguese had contact, in a diaspora beyond the empire itself, constitute an amazing dispersion brought to light by Magalhães Godinho’s studies on the Portuguese and on emigration. He does not dwell excessively on political history, though he may occasionally refer to it, in a style that appears to be painstakingly elaborate when addressing such issues to show events and how they are factually woven and intertwined. The writer, as the historian must be, excels himself in the elaborate reconstruction of narratives.
