Like its predecessor, this study attempts to review the history and treat in a concise and objective manner the dominant social, political, economic, and military aspects of Portugal. Sources of information included books, scholarly journals, foreign and domestic newspapers, official reports of government and international organizations, and numerous periodicals on Portuguese and international affairs. Chapter bibliographies appear at the end of the book, and brief comments on some of the more valuable sources recommended for further reading appear at the end of each chapter. A Glossary is also included.
Spellings of place-names used in the book are in most cases those approved by the United States Board on Geographic Names. Exceptions are the use of Lisbon rather than Lisboa, the Portguese form of the capital's name, and Azores rather than Açores.
Measurements are given in the metric system. A conversion table is provided to assist those readers who are unfamiliar with metric measures (see table 1, Appendix).
The body of the text reflects information available as of January 1993. Certain other portions of the text, however, have been updated: the Introduction discusses significant events that have occurred since the completion of the research, and the Bibliography includes recently published sources thought to be particularly helpful to the reader.
Data as of January 1993