Almanack ()

The Emergence of a Cosmopolitan Point of View: The Experiencing of the Universal History's History of Portugal

  • André Ramos,
  • Valdei Lopes de Araujo

DOI
https://doi.org/10.1590/2236-463320151013
Journal volume & issue
no. 10
pp. 465 – 478

Abstract

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Abstract In this article we explore the British editorial project of the Universal History and its reception in the Lusophone world in the late eighteenth century. Focusing on the changes in the experience of history, we analyze how this project was designed to attend to the aspirations of an expanding readership and the rise of different temporal experiences existing in that world. We argued that these new expectations for a cosmopolitan view of the historical process couldn't emerge only from the boundaries of traditional narratives focused in rhetorical decorum and demands from the contemporary erudite scholarship in the academies. Lastly, we investigate how Antônio de Moraes Silva, a Luso-Brazilian man of letters, compiled and translated theHistory of Portugal from a French extended edition of theUniversal History . Our main intention was to show how this edition highlights the impossibility of establishing a uniform and harmonious representation of the historical process and events in a context of dissolution of the traditional functions of historical discourse.

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