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THE TEAM
CONTACT
In technical resources too, it forged its own seafaring capacity and its administrative shape, which are also relevant aspects of culture. In this light, JBM reflected in 1973 on the polemic around the use of the expression estrangeirado (“foreignized” person) and the evolution in the sense attached to it, ranging from a criticism of those who did not understand the culture and civilization into which they had been born to an endorsement of the superiority of ideas coming from those who adopted a critical attitude and a principle of external validation. On this point Macedo asked himself “if the creation of the estrangeirado does not sketch out the problem of influences in ways that subordinate other factors”, if it did not form part of a scheme of self-validation, an aristocracy of power, whatever that might be. In that case it would be necessary to scrutinize the true dialectical tensions in Portuguese culture and society, and to establish the true scale and significance of the estrangeirado.
Concomitantly, JBM tackled the fundamental questions of Portugal’s capacity to exist as a nation and as a state and its position on the international scene, of Portuguese expansion and the specificity of the colonial regime, while at the same time elaborating a theory of the various phases of absolutist power and defining concepts and the application of the terms bourgeoisie, nobility, centralism, enlightened despotism, commercial companies, industry and industrialization. Also notable are his interrogation of and his proposals for a critical definition of the processes of formation of elites in Portugal, the role of minorities, and the problems of social mobility from the Absolute Monarchy to the Liberal regime. Over the years he worked on his Constantes e linhas de força da história diplomática portuguesa, a synthesis of political, diplomatic, military and comparative history. This is a work based on a geopolitical perspective which does not contradict or ignore the traditional diplomatic history, whose value it recognizes, pointing particularly to the Viscount of Santarém and Eduardo Brazão. In it he analyses “the sequence of events in which Portugal has been involved” and “the solutions which, in the face of them, those responsible […] were able to elaborate and impose”. It tries to understand “the royalist administration” “guided by political will”, with the aim of defending its independence and national security. If it has a theory, it would be “the theorization of Portuguese experience”. Its point of departure is “the Nation in its place”, which we can and should understand by the contribution to its elaboration by Marc Bloch and Lucien Febvre and also by Orlando Ribeiro, and their preference for geographical challenges to the detriment of any determinant phenomena.
