Showing Salazarism

Drawing on Jeffrey T. Schnapp’s conceptual framework, this book examines political exhibitions organized by the Portuguese Estado Novo between 1934 and 1940 as spaces where regimes manipulated national history to legitimize their authority, crafting myths of origin and narratives of national pride.

The Portuguese Estado Novo invested heavily in political exhibitions to consolidate its power and project a favorable image abroad, making them key instrument of propaganda and cultural diplomacy. By analysing national exhibitions and Portugal’s participation in the international fairs in Paris (1937), New York, and San Francisco (1939), it explores how the regime’s efforts to construct a shared past reinforced its consolidation and provided a unifying foundation for its internal factions. It also examines how Salazarism, navigating both missteps and successes, designed its pavilions to develop visual propaganda and a teleological narrative aimed at fostering loyalty and devotion to its core values. By bridging the local and the global, Showing Salazarism demonstrates how the Estado Novo leveraged these events to forge alliances, influence international audiences, and strengthen ties with the Portuguese diaspora – embedding its cultural strategy within the broader framework of the interwar period.

This volume fills a critical gap in the historiography of Salazar’s Portugal while offering fresh insights into the study of political exhibitions and will be of value to students and scholars alike interested in the studies of fascism and European history.

Author Biography

Annarita Gori is a Research Fellow at the Institute of Social Sciences, University of Lisbon. She was a Luso-American Development Foundation (FLAD) Visiting Professor at Brown University and a Fulbright Scholar at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth. Her research focuses on cultural diplomacy, visual propaganda, and intellectual networks during Portugal’s Estado Novo regime.