This edition of Professor Livermore’s A New History of Portugal is not revised in any major way. With the exception of a new chapter on the 1974 revolution, the text is the same as in the original 1966 edition. Although some mistakes appearing in the first edition have been corrected, several others, including some pointed out by Charles E. Nowell in his review of that work (HAHR, August 1968) have remained.
In line with the rest of the volume, the new chapter entitled “Dr. Caetano and the Revolution of 1974” is a historical narrative of political events leading to the 1974 military coup. In these additional pages the author traces the causes of the military uprising to the economic crisis plaguing the Portuguese empire and the untenable military situation in the overseas territories. Although Professor Livermore’s conclusions are sound and correct, the treatment of this topic is somewhat hasty and the connection between cause and effect, as far as the 1974 revolution is concerned, is not always clear.
As a strictly political history of Portugal, this volume is still the best extant. For a more comprehensive treatment of the history of that Iberian country, however, the reader would have to look elsewhere.