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He underlined the irreplaceable role of the elites, in culture, in political administration, in economic strategy, in their military capacity. The defence of national independence was key to determining the capacity of the elites and the internal mechanism for their selection and endorsement. Beyond the realm of the necessary there was also the decisive area in which national political will was exercised. Emphasizing that the unit of analysis is the modest potential of a nation that structures itself as a nation, JBM considers that it is precisely in the smaller powers that the relationship between internal and external politics is most obvious and where the “utility” of the state is most evident. The distinction made between different conjunctures expressed in the work follows these principles.
Throughout his life JBM continued to respond to the interpellations that his times made of history, a point in common with Herculano, who had interrogated history by asking himself about his own times. JBM responds through his work, by analysing the underlying historical positions, their arguments, and their criteria of validation. While not a polemicist, in the sense of counterposing positions with a view to the victory or defeat of a given proposal, he gave particular importance in academic debate to clear and well-founded hypotheses. In this respect he was close to Karl Popper. Rather than a polemical approach this represents an analysis of the positions that JBM recognizes as important, while not necessarily agreeing with them, and which he is interested in elucidating for the consequences that might flow from them for the advancement of knowledge. In other words, it is not a primordial taste for polemic but the consequence of a conception of the role that the intellectual should play. In the same way that he debated the positions of António Sérgio he would come to disagree with certain reductive interpretations of the work of Luís de Camões and of Portuguese humanism. He also embraced Herculano and commented on his Origins and Establishment of the Inquisition in Portugal, and he drew attention to the importance of Garrett, to Rebelo de Silva’s História de Portugal, to Lúcio d’Azevedo’s Epochs of the Portuguese Economy, and to the work of Oliveira Martins. In the same way he praised the position of Américo da Costa Ramalho regarding his characterization of Portuguese humanism, and underlined the importance of Frédéric Mauro’s work on the Atlantic and European expansion.
