Nonetheless, back in 1934 he had published História dos Descobrimentos Portugueses (History of the Portuguese Discoveries) (re-printed in 1943 and revised in 1961), which was the result of his teaching and his pedagogic concerns. Here he sought to present the main issues of the subject in relatively simple didactic terms. Damião Peres was not a historian who was concerned with problematisation nor with theorisation based on historical investigation. He was a historian who had clear ideas but within conceptions that were not positivist but more marked by other concerns, or what had been called neo-methodical historicism: erudition, documental examination of evidence, care in both text construction and editing, writing texts that tried to cover everything and left few unanswered questions.

Although he positions Portugal well within the European context, what concerns him is what he terms “The Genesis of the Portuguese Discoveries”. Right from the beginning, he highlights Portugal’s vocation for fishing and producing salt – in this he mirrors António Sérgio – and goes on to describe with copious details based on documental evidence the chronological path of the discoveries from Madeira to Australia and New Guinea. It is a very careful and detailed investigation based on a vast bibliography and using archive material to reinforce his narrative and arguments. It is a work in which he takes pleasure in inserting his own new conclusions which, even these, “cannot do without the compendium of studies and other points of view which have been expounded on the various subjects dealt with in it“ (Américo Vespúcio..., p. 17). He uses a fine toothcomb, which gives him exceptional security of information, although he loses historical problematisation which he almost always ignores. Either way, dated and marked by erudite concerns somewhat irritating at times, it remains a safe work and for this reason indispensable.

Following the same line of historiographical accuracy, Como nasceu Portugal (How Portugal was born) appeared in 1938. As it was a work that was compulsory reading in an education system chiefly concerned with the question of origin, Damião Peres’ book became such a publishing success that it endured for decades even meriting a 10th edition in 1992. In it the author tries to show how the geographical, cultural (linguistic) and ethnic reality of the western seaboard of the Peninsula was not a decisive factor for the constitution of nationality. This – although without dismissing the original communities of a territory from which it could detach itself - resulted from the political desire of a group of barons from the Entre-Douro and Minho who led the Condado Portucalense (County of Portugal) until a kingdom could be established that was politically distinct from León and Castile.

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