With the end of the Second World War and the appearance of a new generation, there arose a new audience that was not just interested in an exclusively nationalist history underpinned by methods based on simple scholarship. There was a need for summaries that provided a better explanation of the past, with more methodological rigor and help from other sciences.

Teixeira da Mota took part in this renovation movement, establishing close ties with many of those who had initiated it. His discussions and exchange of ideas over the years with Vitorino Magalhães Godinho and Jaime Cortesão and joint scientific and academic work with Armando Cortesão and Luís de Albuquerque leave little room for doubt as to Teixeira da Mota’s role in outlining the new paths that Portuguese historiography travelled in the second half of the 20th century. He said that he did not think that the study of the past should serve to highlight glorious facts, but rather to understand that past.

It is particularly worth mentioning four of his studies, and one work he co-wrote, as projects that contributed to the renovation of Portuguese historiography over the course of the 20th century: a) A Descoberta da Guiné (“The Discovery of Guinea”, 1946); b) A Arte de Navegar no Mediterrâneo nos Séculos XIII-XVII e a criação da Navegação Astronómica no Atlântico e Indico (“The Art of Navigating in the Mediterranean and the creation of Astronomical Navigation in the Atlantic and Indian Oceans”, 1957); c) A Viagem de Bartolomeu Dias e as Concepções geopolíticas de D. João II (“The Voyage of Bartolomeu Dias and the Geopolitical Conceptions of King João II”, 1958); d) A Escola de Sagres (“The Sagres School”, 1960); and e) Portugaliae Monumenta Cartographica (1960-62).

Africa, its peoples, cultures, religions and the physical and human geography of the Dark Continent are central to Teixeira da Mota’s writing and thoughts. The fact is that the twelve successive years he spent there (1945-1957) were to open up broad horizons in the research field and generate close contacts with a body of European scientists who held positions in the colonial administrations there. The process of renewing the sciences and many of the scientific progresses of the period were also linked to the European scientific campaigns in post-war Africa. Many of the historiographical novelties produced by Teixeira da Mota were profoundly influenced by this scientific and intellectual environment. The twelve years in which he lived on the west coast of Africa were among the most fruitful of his intellectual life. His love of history and geography expanded to include an interest in sciences such as anthropology, ethnography and topography. His first major research work to be made public – “A Descoberta da Guiné” – came out in 1946, in Boletim Cultural da Guiné Portuguesa, and immediately stirred the waters of Portuguese historiography, which at the time was engaged in a debate that opposed tradition and renovation. His direct knowledge of populations and the geographic environment, complemented by the use of old texts, many of which had thus far been historiographically un- or underused, gave the then Aide de Camp to the Governor of Portuguese Guinea the opportunity to resolve the intricate problem of the chronology of the “discovery” of Guinea and the whole process surrounding it.

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