Histories of Portugal

In 1999, at a conference on the teaching of history promoted by the Portuguese Association of History Teachers, it seemed possible to me to state as follows: “Present-day historiographic practice has not only abandoned the great syntheses of the past, but it has also made it practically impossible to produce smaller syntheses. It calls into question the very notion of “epoch”, and, furthermore, of “period”, that used to form the fundamental bases for the work of reconstructing the past and its interpretation.” The theme that was chosen for today’s meeting, the fact of our dealing precisely with a recently published synthesis (that of the History of Portugal edited by Rui Ramos), and of this having met with great success as a publication, seems to contradict what I considered to be evident at that time. I also wonder if it is still possible to maintain what I said then about the notions of epoch and period.