The Portugal Story: Three Centuries of Exploration and Discovery

by John Dos Passos

This selective history of Portugal reflects the author’s fascination with his own Portuguese/Madeiran heritage. The work tracks the nation’s rise and fall as a world power, drawing from the author’s travels and archival research.

“Dos Passos,” writes historian J. H. Plumb, “brings to his material a novelist’s acute eye for human character and a narrative skill that any historian might envy; and he has produced one of the most readable books on the subject that I know.”

Genres: History

424 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1969

About the author

John Dos Passos was a prominent American novelist, artist, and political thinker best known for his U.S.A. trilogy—The 42nd Parallel, 1919, and The Big Money—a groundbreaking work of modernist fiction that employed experimental narrative techniques to depict the complexities of early 20th-century American life. Born in Chicago in 1896, he was educated at Harvard and served as an ambulance driver during World War I, experiences that deeply influenced his early literary themes. His first novel, One Man’s Initiation: 1917, and the antiwar Three Soldiers drew on his wartime observations and marked him as a major voice among the Lost Generation.
Dos Passos’s 1925 novel Manhattan Transfer brought him widespread recognition and introduced stylistic innovations that would define his later work. His U.S.A. trilogy fused fiction, biography, newsreel-style reportage, and autobiographical “Camera Eye” sections to explore the impact of capitalism, war, and political disillusionment on the American psyche. Once aligned with leftist politics, Dos Passos grew increasingly disillusioned with Communism, especially after the murder of his friend José Robles during the Spanish Civil War—a turning point that led to a break with Ernest Hemingway and a sharp turn toward conservatism.
Throughout his career, Dos Passos remained politically engaged, writing essays, journalism, and historical studies while also campaigning for right-leaning figures like Barry Goldwater and Richard Nixon in the 1960s. He contributed to publications such as American Heritage, National Review, and The Freeman, and published over forty books including biographies and historical reflections. Despite political shifts, his commitment to liberty and skepticism of authoritarianism remained central themes.
Also a visual artist, Dos Passos created cover art and illustrations for many of his own books, exhibiting a style influenced by modernist European art. Though less acclaimed for his painting, he remained artistically active throughout his life. His multidisciplinary approach and innovations in narrative structure influenced numerous writers and filmmakers, from Jean-Paul Sartre to Norman Mailer and Adam Curtis.
Later recognized with the Antonio Feltrinelli Prize for literature in 1967, Dos Passos’s legacy endures through his literary innovations and sharp commentary on American identity. He died in 1970, leaving behind a vast and diverse body of work that continues to shape the landscape of American fiction.

Reviews

[Kevin de Ataíde]

A very interesting telling of the Portuguese history. The author, I read, is an accomplished novelist who composed this history late in life. Indeed, this history reads as a novel, but we won't take that too far. A few reviews I have found expect too much of this, finding fault with the language and the dull lists of names. But novelists can be historians if they wish to.



I have found invaluable the descriptions of the personalities of the various figures, and the descriptions of the voyages of exploration and the conquest and subjugation of the great sea-ports of the East. John dos Passos rides a fine line of impartiality, mentioning in the same breath the strengths of the Portuguese and their failings. Brave men certainly, covetous too, devout and pious Christians, greedy and exploitative.



Today, many places in Africa and Asia retain the marks of the Portuguese kings. It would do us well to discover the history of these. The Portugal Story is an excellent resource.

[Joel · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book brought home how history has changed in the last 50 years. Back then, history could be a tale of how glorious explorers led voyages around Africa and Asia and blithely brought home slaves, attacked indigenous people for no good reason, and claimed territory like it didn’t have civilizations. And all of this goes without any sort of negative comment, or insight into the lives of those affected, or even of the sailors. Look for this to return to our schools, soon.

[Mauricio · Rating 5 out of 5]

Grandioso. Contiene mil historias menores demasiado interesantes.

[João Abreu · Rating 4 out of 5]

Permite uma viagem espaço-temporal até aos primórdios do nosso país.

[ErnstG · Rating 4 out of 5]

A review of Portugal up to the end of its Golden Age ie late 16th Century. The decline of the Empire is described perfunctorily.

As you might expect from a novelist, it is highly readable. Well structured, well told, with human interest and all in short, simple sentences.