ABSTRACT
The gala events, publications, and exhibitions in the 1990s commemorating the five hundredth anniversary of Portugal's glorious “era of the discoveries” amply demonstrate that a heritage of maritime exploration and empire endures as Portugal's national touchstone. 1 Geography, architecture, literature, and monuments underscore the nation's Atlantic and maritime identity. The nature and scope of Portugal's overseas holdings and Portuguese emigration changed over five hundred years, as did the leadership's political and cultural relationship with lands overseas. Portuguese people of many descriptions labored at the interface of formerly unconnected lands, peoples, plants, and languages. Their imagined and lived experiences grounded a twentieth-century global empire that included Atlantic islands, parts of West and East Africa, the Asian Subcontinent, and East Asia.
