Miriam Halpern Pereira was also a pioneer in the study of liberal revolutions in Portugal, strongly emphasising their importance and significance, which she sought to convey and disseminate through various channels. One of these arose from the need she saw to provide working tools to students of the history courses of the aforementioned ISCTE degrees, whose Contemporary History programmes, under her impetus, placed particular emphasis on that century. It was in this context that she published her first book on the period in 1979, entitled Revolucão, Finanças e Dependência Externa (Revolution, Finance and External Dependence). It was an annotated anthology of political, economic and legal texts relating to the establishment of liberalism, essential for understanding the process of rupture with the old regime. The texts ranged from excerpts from the three Constitutions to the most significant trade treaties of the period and the most important liberal reforms, among others, capable of framing the main events of the period, from the revolution of 1820 to the revolution of September 1836, Maria da Fonte and the Patuleia. The texts on Vintism, Cartism and Setembrism were joined by others on Miguelism, thus opening up, for the first time, within the framework of the historiographical modernisation that the country had begun to undergo, the field of analysis to all the relevant political forces of that period. The work was intended to be the first in a trilogy entitled Portugal no século XIX (Portugal in the 19th Century), but only the third volume, Origens do Colonialismo Português Moderno (Origins of Modern Portuguese Colonialism), by Valentim Alexandre, was ever published. Miriam Halpern Pereira’s new book was once again a great success in academic circles, as this annotated compilation of texts on the liberal revolutions, aimed at students, also provided researchers with an easily accessible tool for those working or wishing to work on the first half of the 19th century in Portugal. Shortly afterwards, Miriam Halpern Pereira challenged her closest collaborators to embark on a new project: the creation of a scientific history journal, open to interdisciplinarity and with an international focus. The project came to fruition in 1983 with the publication of the first issue of the journal Ler História, of which she was editor until 2008. Focusing mainly on modern and contemporary history, Ler História published, over many years, leading Portuguese and foreign historians, as well as young historians, many of whom began their historiographical careers there. It did so without neglecting its original interdisciplinary vocation, supported above all by dialogue with anthropology, promoted by an anthropologist from ISCTE, Raúl Iturra, who was a member of its editorial board from the first issue. The journal was published continuously from 1983 until 2023, the year in which it celebrated its 40th anniversary, and continues to be published at a steady pace.

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