Abstract

Interwar Portugal was in many ways a microcosm of Europe’s encounter with modernity: reshaped by industrialization, urban growth, and the antagonism between liberalism and authoritarianism, it also witnessed new forms of media and mass culture that transformed daily life. This fascinating study of newspapers in 1920s Portugal explores how the new “modernist reportage” embodied the spirit of the era while mediating some of its most spectacular episodes, from political upheavals to lurid crimes of passion. In the process, Luís Trindade illuminates the twofold nature of that journalism—both historical account and material object, it epitomized a distinctly modern entanglement of narrative and event.

“This is an outstanding book and a superlative example of cultural studies done at its best. Luís Trindade develops a sophisticated argument with a clarity of expression that makes this one of the most important works in the field to date.” · Phillip Rothwell, University of Oxford

“By treating journalistic narratives as objects of representation in which discourse and the material world coincide, Trindade offers a new window into modernizing societies. His book is clearly written, thoroughly researched, and persuasive.” · Ellen Sapega, University of Wisconsin

Luís Trindade teaches Portuguese Culture and History at Birkbeck, University of London. In addition to his edited volume The Making of Modern Portugal (2013), he has published on the histories of Portuguese nationalism and Marxism, Portuguese cinema, the Carnation Revolution, and the history of mass culture in twentieth-century Portugal.