Description
Salazar: A Political Biography is the definitive biography of the longstanding Portuguese dictator.
António de Oliveira Salazar entered the government of Portugal when Herbert Hoover was president and ended his political career at the end of the Johnson administration. He remained in power for forty years (1928–1968), one of the longest tenures in modern history. Unlike the other ‘great dictators’ of the twentieth century, Salazar, an academic, immersed himself in the minutiae of government and administration, maintaining a prodigious work rate until illness forced his retirement. He successfully managed his country’s finances despite the impact of the Great Depression, imposing a harsh policy of austerity. He then preserved Portugal’s neutrality during the Second World War, ultimately favouring Great Britain and the United States. But Salazar was at heart an extremely conservative, even reactionary statesman. He relied on secrecy and a police state to maintain the order which, he believed, was necessary to control progress. Rejecting the anti-colonialist movements in Asia and Africa, he plunged Portugal into a series of wars in Africa it could ill afford.
Fully revised and updated throughout, this remains the authoritative biography of a key Portuguese political leader who was a significant presence in twentieth-century politics. This book will be of interest to historians of the far right, international diplomacy and Portugal.
Table of Contents
Prologue Introduction 1. From Santa Comba Dão to São Bento 2. The New State in the Age of Totalitarianism 3. The Spanish Civil War, 1936–1939 4. The Second World War: The Axis Threat, 1939–1942 5. The Second World War: The Allied Threat, 1943–1945 6. The Postwar World 7. Salazar and the Politics of the New State, 1945–1958 8. A New Opposition: Humberto Delgado and the Bishop of Oporto 9. The Colonial Reckoning I: Angola, 1961 10. The Colonial Reckoning II: Salazar’s Defiance 11. Portugal at War: The 1960s 12. Illness, Retirement and Death Conclusion Bibliography
