The Portuguese. A Modern History

In 1925, Fernando Pessoa wrote a small book aimed at teaching the tourist what he should see in Portugal in which he lamented that “for the average British, and, indeed, for the average anything (except Spaniards) outside Portugal, Portugal is a vague small country somewhere in Europe, sometimes supposed to be part of Spain.” Since then, the lack of knowledge denounced by Pessoa has been gradually overcome, but, whenever someone from Portugal hits the news outside their homeland, this small country located in Europe’s periphery and assigned a secondary role in international economic and political affairs, still remains an “illustrious unknown” within foreign public opinion, despite its much-acclaimed hospitality.