This is the first major study in English for over half a century of one of Portugal's most important historical figures, Sebastião José de Carvalho e Melo, marquês de Pombal (1699-1782). He is best known today as the key figure in the reconstruction of Lisbon after the devastating earthquake of 1755. Pombal's achievements however went far beyond the reconstruction of the capital. An unusually single-minded and ruthless first minister, he was also one of the eighteenth century's most successful 'enlightened despots': for example, he reformed the Portugese system of education, began the process whereby the Jesuits were expelled from Portugal after their suppression by the Pope in 1773, and mounted a formidable challenge to British commercial hegemony in Portugal. Recent renewed interest in the theory of enlightened absolutism has tended to ignore developments in the Iberian peninsula. This book is therefore essential to a full understanding of the complexities and paradoxes of enlightened rulership in a southern European context.
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'... well worth reading, not only for the broad view of social, economic and political trends, but also for the fascinating personalities whose family names endure among the Portuguese political and business elite and for the beautiful illustrations based on historical etchings and paintings.' Luso Americano
Book Description
The first major study in English for over half a century of one of Portugal's most important historical figures, Sebastião José de Carvalho e Melo, marquês de Pombal (1699-1782). Best known today as the key figure in the reconstruction of Lisbon after the devastating earthquake of 1755. Was also one of the eighteenth century's most successful 'enlightened despots'.
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Bete-Noir or Hero, an enlightened Dictator?,
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This review is from: Pombal, Paradox of the Enlightenment (Hardcover)
Kenneth Maxwell has given us one of the few available studies in english of one of the giants of the XVIII century, and it is worth every penny. An attractively bound book with both black and white and colour plates it is a valueable and beautiful reference. Maxwell's style is both scholarly and readable. Often forgotten, the dreaded Marques de Pombal was Portugal's Richelieu. A man to be feared and obeyed. Yet he was responceable for the increadable recovery of Lisbon in the wake of the cataclysmic earthquake of 1755. Lisbon, one of the great cities of the world was almost anihilated in less than a hour, and Portugal's very existence threatened. Pomabal's responce was brilliance itself; swift, courageous, and humane. While he did not utter the famous "let us bury the dead and care for the living" he was the man to put the sentiment into practise. He was also a ruthless and dangerous man. Any enemy of the state, real or imagined he viewed as a contagion, either to be cured or if not, eradicated. He was responsable for the most sweeping positive reforms Portugal had seen in centuries, and of gruesome excesses in the name of "the State". Towards the Jesuits, whom should have been his natural allies, he harboured only suspicion and hatred. Culminatting finally in an open attack upon them which would lead to their expulsion and eventual suppresion, a tragic loss for europe as a whole. While I still regard Pombal in an essentially negative way, a brilliant and inspired monster, but a monster nonetheless, this book helped me see the old devil in a new light, and to appreciate his devotion to his nation and countrymen. So, sip a glass of port, relax and meet the Marques.
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