In 1990, he began his “most ambitious opus magnum” in the words of the above-mentioned author (Idem, p. 139), the História da Maçonaria em Portugal [History of Freemasonry in Portugal], originally conceived in four volumes,  of which only two were published, and the second volume was published in two parts, in 1996 and 1997 respectively, providing the political and social economic profile of freemasons in different historical times, as well as of the internal organisation and the masonry ritual supported by relevant and updated bibliography and enriched with detailed appendices (part of the fourth volume was published in 2011). With a view to their dissemination, he summarised his teachings in little over a hundred pages in A Maçonaria em Portugal [Freemasonry in Portugal] (1998). In this book, as in many other essays, “viewing freemasonry against the social context by which it is framed is a unique way of understanding the relationship between Professor Oliveira Marques and his freemasonry work”, recalling the words of Ferrer Benimeli (Idem, p. 146).

With a great knack for synthesis, and since he believed there was no updated synthesis of the History of Portugal, Oliveira Marques decided to write it, initially with a view to its dissemination in the United States, however this project was subsequently further expanded. It was published in two volumes, in English and in Portuguese, and in 1972 a third volume was released. It is a synthesis of the history of Portugal, supported by updated bibliography and with a rather innovative approach insofar as  not only does it feature political history but also demography, economy, society and culture, revising propositions and concepts of the official historiography (from the significance of the Reconquest to the very existence of feudalism in Portugal), advancing the history of the Empire and highlighting the history that followed the liberal revolution, extending his study to the present day (José Amado Mendes, História da História em Portugal…[History of the History in Portugal…], 1996, pp. 321-324). The impact of this work in Portugal, on both high school and university education, may be judged on the basis of its 15 editions (the latest in 2010) and its international impact by way of the translations into German, Spanish, French, Japanese, Romanian and Polish, besides the English edition.  The short version of this work, Breve História de Portugal [A Short History of Portugal] (1995), had 11 editions in Portuguese (2019), and a very short version Brevíssima História de Portugal [A Very Short History of Portugal] (1992), had four editions in Portuguese and was translated into French, English, Chinese, Spanish, Romanian and Italian, with a different number of editions. But Oliveira Marques went even further in the vast scientific study of the history of Portugal and in making it available to the public at large.

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