In 2018/19, she also embarked on a new and very ambitious project: the commemoration of the bicentenary of the 1820 revolution, which she coordinated with colleagues from various Portuguese universities. This commemoration took the form of an important international conference, which was attended by historians from various countries, thus highlighting the supranational dimension of this process and integrating it into the broader context of the Mediterranean and Atlantic revolutions of those years. Planned to take place in 2020, as a result of restrictions resulting from the Covid-19 pandemic, the Congress will now be held in 2022. A careful selection of texts from some of the papers presented there was published in book form the following year, under the title A Revolução de 1820. Leituras e impactos (The Revolution of 1820. Readings and impacts).

A professor at ISCTE for several decades and supervisor of numerous master’s and doctoral theses, several generations of students have witnessed her rigour and high standards, as well as her vast knowledge and broad scientific horizons. The latter can also testify that she never imposed topics from a pre-established historiographical agenda on them. Miriam Halpern Pereira was always open to topics and perspectives outside her areas of interest, as long as the proposals seemed meaningful and coherent. She did not, therefore, create a ‘school’ in the classical sense of the term, marked by an affinity of themes and interpretations, but rather by a demanding practice of constant scientific updating, curiosity and historiographical imagination.

Fifty years after the publication of Livre-câmbio e Desenvolvimento Económico: Portugal na segunda metade do século XIX (Free Trade and Economic Development: Portugal in the Second Half of the 19th Century), considered a milestone in Portuguese historiography, the National Library of Portugal marked the date in 2021 with an exhibition dedicated to her. For her career, she was awarded the Medal of Scientific Merit by the Ministry of Science, Technology and Higher Education in 2016. On 26 January 2023, she was awarded the Grand Cross of the Order of Infante Dom Henrique. Her selected works, O Seculo do liberalismo, are currently in press and will be published in 2024 by the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation.

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