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THE TEAM
CONTACT
He then secured a position as Second Assistant at the Faculty of Letters, being responsible for classes in Theory of History, a course then organized by Virgína Rau (which he would take over in 1963), as well History of the Discoveries and Portuguese Colonization, organized by Manuel Heleno. Over time he would lecture in Modern and Contemporary History (1958), History of Portuguese Culture (1959), History of Modern Culture (1960), History of Portugal II (1960) and History of Portugal I (1964/65). In June 1964 he defended his doctoral thesis on “Problems in the History of Portuguese Industry in the Eighteenth Century”.
By this time his position in the Portuguese universities and his standing in the national and international academic communities were secure. In 1963 he participated in the Fifth International Colloquium for Luso-Brazilian Studies, in Coimbra, and he was nominated Joint Secretary of the Portuguese Commission of the Comité International des Sciences Historiques. In 1965 he took part in the Second International Congress of Economic History, in Munich. There followed a trip to Brazil, and participation, in 1966, in the Sixth International Colloquium of Luso-Brazilian Studies, in Boston and New York.
From the academic year 1965/66 he also lectured at the Higher Institute of Economic and Financial Sciences (in Economic History) and was a researcher at the Bureau of Economic Research until 1972, when he had to withdraw because of difficulties in reconciling that with his duties at the Faculty of Letters. That year he also organized a course at the Higher Institute of Social Sciences and Overseas Policy. In May and June 1967 he was examined for admission to the teaching staff, and in the following year for the attribution of a Chair. He chose the Chair of Modern and Contemporary History of Portugal, where he made his mark by his structured thinking, his exceptional subtlety and capacity for developing an argument, and his knowledge, always up to date, of foreign research and publications, fundamental for evaluating the position and significance of Portugal and its history on the international scene. He was also responsible for the Seminar on Modern History and courses in Theory of History and History of Modern and Contemporary Culture. In this regard, we should mention the various notes of his courses, taken by generations of students, who drew from them his interpretive schemes, his arguments, and his indications of consequences.
