Book launch: "Guarda. From its Origins to the Present"

This work, developed by a multidisciplinary team of over three dozen researchers and coordinated by CEPESE, provides a concise but scientifically rigorous account of the history of the city and municipality of Guarda, from its prehistoric origins to the 21st century..

Profusely illustrated and supported by 300 tables and graphs, the work is divided into four volumes, following a chronological sequence that covers, within each major period, the main themes related to it, from political-administrative structures to religious ones, from demographic behaviours to economy, from social organization to urban planning and architecture.

Following this logic, the first volume, after a brief geographical overview of Guarda, begins in the Upper Paleolithic, as the oldest settlements in the region date back to this era, traverses the Roman Period, and extends to the end of the Middle Ages (15th-16th centuries).

The second volume basically corresponds to the so-called Ancien Régime (16th century to the Liberal Revolution of 1820), an expression that reflects a complex reality, simultaneously referring to a political organization and a society with its own institutions, governance practices, and mentalities.

The last two volumes address Guarda in Contemporary Portugal (1820-2020), heir to the Liberal Revolution, which caused a profound rupture by dismantling the political and social structure of the Ancien Régime. Guarda, like the entire country, albeit slowly, enters a new phase of its history, shaping and conditioning its present.