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  • The article presents the Author Index of issues 33 to 36 of the *Review of Culture* (Revista Macau), systematically organizing the contributions published in the “RC International” section. The editorial proposal focuses on making retrievable, through bibliographic and authorial references, the studies that address central themes for the history and culture of Macau and related spaces in Asia and the Lusophone world. The methodology is essentially documentary and bibliographic: the survey and indexing of authors, in correspondence with their respective titles and the identification of the issue number, month of publication, and pagination. The selection highlights plural approaches — from Atlantic and Asian circulation (including relations between Portugal, China, and Macau) to analyses of epidemics, port projects, and republican movements; from studies of cartography and trade to investigations of missions, identities, and sociocultural dynamics, often in dialogue with European and Chinese sources. As results, the index consolidates a reference tool that favors thematic and authorial navigation, allowing the reader to map research networks and guide access to specific works within the 2009–2010 set, contributing to the preservation and intelligibility of the journal's collection.

  • The article analyzes the "questions currently pending between Portugal and China" that motivated, on April 3, 1911, the creation of the Commission Appointed to Study Luso-Chinese Problems. Based on the assumption that the centenary of that act refers to a moment of simultaneous turning point in both countries — the end of the monarchical and imperial regimes and the birth of their respective republics — the author seeks to explain how the political choices of the Portuguese First Republic conditioned the continuity of the diplomatic negotiations initiated after the Treaty of Nanjing (1842). Methodologically, the text articulates historical contextualization with an examination of governmental decisions and the institutional logic behind the commission, emphasizing the relationship between republican nationalist discourse and overseas priorities. It concludes that, despite the rhetoric of safeguarding the overseas territories as the nation's "heritage," praxis reveals specificities inherent to the Macao question that cannot be reduced to abstract principles. Two central axes are identified as structuring problems of the Luso-Chinese dialogue: the opium issue and the definition/regularization of Macao's borders.

  • Amadeu Carvalho Homem's article revisits the childhood and formative years of Joaquim Teófilo Fernandes Braga (Teófilo Braga), evoking his configuration as a Republican man of letters against the backdrop of the Azorean context in which his first intellectual socialisation unfolded. It is argued that the trajectory of the future symbolic founder of the Republic cannot be read solely as the result of late individual choices, but rather as a continuity and transformation of early experiences marked by family losses, emotional instability, and a local environment of intense cultural life, grounded in patronage, poetic traditions, and networks of journalistic and scholastic production. Methodologically, the text reconstructs a biographical itinerary supported by an examination of historical circumstances (Miguelism, deportation, the move to Ponta Delgada) and by an analysis of episodes and writing trajectories: the beginnings of his teaching career, his contestatory attitude at the lyceum, his publications in Micaelense periodicals, the material precariousness of his productions, and the composition of *Folhas Verdes* (1859). It is concluded that Teófilo Braga was shaped by a peripheral cultural "laboratory," where scholastic discipline coexisted with literary experimentation and the forthright assertion of intellectual ambitions, preparing the ground for his subsequent role in Republican culture.

  • The article argues that the establishment of republican regimes in Portugal and China exposed the exhaustion of monarchical logics of power and their difficulties in driving an economic modernization capable of sustaining industrialization, the rational intensification of agriculture, and integration into global markets. Starting from a historiographical framework that situates recurrent causes of Portuguese "backwardness" in the second half of the nineteenth century, the author proposes an integrated reading of exogenous and endogenous dimensions. Methodologically, it draws on interpretive syntheses and economic-productive data—namely the Industrial Surveys of 1881 and 1890—to characterize the pattern of development and structural constraints on growth. Among the central conclusions, it stands out that the Portuguese economy did not experience an industrial revolution on the "classic" English scale: industrialization was incipient, concentrated, and dependent on first-wave sectors, with weak transformation of productive structures and a persistent predominance of labor and wealth in agriculture. The text further articulates causes such as the primary-export orientation reinforced by treaties with England, peripheralization vis-à-vis industrialized Europe, the weight of aristocratic attitudes toward investment, monetary and credit limitations, deficiencies in taxation and education, and the persistence of landholding structures and regimes of exploitation that delayed monetization and productivity.

  • The article by Fernando Mendonça Fava analyzes the political role of João Tamagnini de Sousa Barbosa (1883–?), a Macanese military engineer, within the context of the First Portuguese Republic (1910–1926), highlighting his dimension as a "homo politicus" as a key interpretive tool for understanding the relations between colonies, the State, and the republican regime. Drawing on a historical-biographical approach anchored in parliamentary sources and epistolary documentation (including a letter from Sun Yat-sen to Governor José Carlos da Maia in 1916), the text reconstructs trajectories, ideological alignments, and governance practices, articulating local and overseas experience with the national debates sparked by the war and institutional reorganization. The central argument maintains that Tamagnini reconciled a constitutional republican stance with a rejection of anti-clerical radicalism, advocating for amnesties and a policy of reconciliation aimed at consolidating the regime. As a deputy for Mozambique (from 1916 onwards), he intervened in the critique of the Ministry of Colonies and in the attempt to make bureaucracies more flexible, proposing measures oriented toward economic and administrative development. Concurrently, in Parliament, he took part in the defense of contested republican figures, notably the Governor of Macau, Carlos da Maia, revealing the political relevance of Macau as a space for the circulation of republican networks and legitimacies in the early twentieth century.

  • Starting from the commemoration of the centenary of the 1911 Revolution, Guo Weidong's article interrogates "who or what was behind" the fall of the Qing dynasty, shifting the focus from explanations centered solely on external factors to an analysis of the internal collapse of the imperial regime itself. It is argued that the downfall was not merely a fall brought about by revolution, but a process of gradual self-disintegration, in which the political, military, and social mechanisms of Qing power were already in deep crisis before the Wuchang Uprising. Methodologically, the author proposes a critical reading of the dominant historiographical interpretations—the "orthodox view of Sun Yat-sen" and the thesis of a revolution determined primarily by class and ethnic conflicts—confronting them with concrete evidence and with the organizational and relational trajectory of revolutionary agents. The article further maintains that the "accidental" character of the Wuchang Uprising in fact functioned as the trigger of a "historical inevitability" previously installed. As a case study, Sun Yat-sen's connection with Macao is discussed, highlighting the role of local networks in the formation and implementation of revolutionary structures, as well as the internal tensions that affected the movement's cohesion. It concludes that the fall of the Qing results from the interaction between internal structural weaknesses and external organizational dynamics, in which the collapse of the system precedes and conditions revolutionary success.

  • The article investigates the historiography and social functioning of "floating brothels" in the Pearl River Delta between 1750 and 1930, contrasting two key contexts: the vessels of Whampoa, known to foreigners as "lob lob boats," and the "flower boats" (or barcos floridos) of Canton. The main thesis argues that, although frequently described in Western sources as places of "debauchery," these institutions were instead mechanisms integrated into the port economy and into relations among merchants, sailors, and local authorities. Methodologically, the author undertakes a critical reinterpretation of historical sources and contemporary representations, articulating differences in clientele, regulation, and operating practices. It is argued that in Whampoa, the floating brothels served both foreigners and Asians, functioning as part of the "riverine landscape" and, at the same time, as indirect instruments for managing the foreign presence, with mediation and oversight by the mandarins. In Canton, by contrast, the "flower boats" supposedly served mostly Chinese men, maintaining an exclusivity that depended on their functional connection to a broader ecosystem of floating services. It is concluded that these boats should be understood as sociopolitical and economic institutions, and not merely as spaces of depravity.

  • Paul B. Spooner's article reassesses the role of Song Ailing (宋藹齡) in the political history of Republican China, arguing that her relevance—frequently obscured or conflated with that of Song Qingling (宋慶齡)—has been distorted by secondary literature. The author contends that Song Ailing was a key figure between 1909 and 1914 as a confidential secretary within the Tongmenghui (同盟會) network and in close proximity to Sun Yat Sen, preceding her subsequent consolidation at the heart of the KMT (Kuomintang) through her marriage to H. H. Kung (孔祥熙), which placed her in a central position linked to the Chongqing administration and the government's financial responsibilities. Methodologically, Spooner undertakes a critical review of the principal historiographical and journalistic publications, identifying explicit errors—including the undue conflation of the two sisters' trajectories and the lack of specificity (or controversy) concerning marriage dates. The conclusions emphasize that the chronological sequence of the marriages of Song Ailing and Song Qingling, tied to the reorganization of republican power, had structuring effects on alliances and networks that would culminate in the rise of Chiang Kai-shek and, consequently, in the strengthening of the Song clan's political-financial relations in the ensuing decades.

  • The article argues that the historiography of the Xinhai Revolution and the political trajectory of Sun Yat Sen has neglected a crucial intermediary: the connections between the revolutionary strategy of the Second International and Chinese republican projects in the period preceding the founding of the Third International. Proceeding from the assumption that political and intellectual contact existed between European socialists and Chinese revolutionaries before March 1919, Spooner reconstructs this link through the geopolitical backdrop of the dispute over Manchuria (Qing, Tsarist Russia, and Japan) and the repercussions of the Russian revolutions, in which militants linked to the Second International were deeply involved. It then relates Sun’s shift toward a political philosophy with elements from the socialist world—particularly after the fundraising trip of 1904–1905—with explicit references to his affiliation and with contemporary descriptions of “socializing” tendencies associated with the post-1912 period. Methodologically, the text articulates documentary evidence from period publications and compilations (such as yearbooks and works on the history of socialism) with the Marxist theoretical framework on the sequence between bourgeois revolutions and socialist revolutions. The conclusions suggest that, rather than a late and exclusively Comintern transition, Sun’s trajectory and the formulation of reformist/revolutionary programs engaged early on with internationalist debates on revolution, legality, and armed struggle.

  • This article proposes a comparative reading of the trajectories of Portugal and China between 1908 and 1928, privileging as an interpretative axis the "two revolutions" and the "republican winds" whose circulation was reflected, with varying intensities, in Macao. Starting from the simultaneity of moments of rupture (the assassination of King Carlos in 1908 and the death of Cixi with the rise of Pu Yi; the deposition of Manuel II and the establishment of the Portuguese Republic in 1910, as well as the founding of the Chinese Republic in 1912), the author argues that both contexts experienced transitions from monarchical/imperial to republican regimes, despite distinct historical scales and political dynamics. The methodology, essentially historical-interpretative in nature, organizes the period into three phases (1908–1913; 1914–1919; 1920–1928) and articulates political-institutional events with peripheral effects on the Macanese territory. The first two phases are read as successive stages of transformation and repositioning in the face of war and the reconfiguration of the international order, while the third corresponds to years of instability, conspiracies, revolts, and military interventions, conditioned by the circulation of revolutionary ideology and, in particular, by the impact of the communist cycle inaugurated in 1917. The article concludes that the Luso-Chinese relationship, anchored in Macao, provided a privileged observatory for understanding republican convergences and structural divergences in the historical experience of the two countries.

  • This article analyzes the emergence of the first Dutch blockades of Goa within the framework of the Dutch East India Company's (VOC) operations against the "Carreira da Índia" in the Western Indian Ocean between 1604 and 1623. It argues that such actions resulted not only from the commercial dynamics triggered by the "spice race," but from a progressive transformation of policy and state capacity: the merger and centralization of trade around the VOC, authorized by the States General, enabled the mobilization of military resources to shift the war against the Hispanic Monarchy to the Asian arena. The research reconstructs the evolution of the Dutch naval apparatus on the basis of fleets and official instructions, articulating the chronology of the expeditions (relative reduction in the number of ships, increase in the size of fleets, and the military qualification of commanders) with episodes of conflict along the Portuguese routes. The study contextualizes the initially gradual transition from formally commercial expeditions to openly offensive operations, aimed at damaging the Iberian circuit and protecting VOC partners and interests. It concludes that the blockades of Goa must be understood as the culmination of a coherent strategy of maritime pressure, built in stages between 1604 and 1623, in which the military dimension became structural for European competition in the East.

  • This article revisits the evolution of the Estado da Índia between 1571 and 1577, proposing a reinterpretation of the “second phase” of the crisis of 1565–1575, often closed by historiography in 1575 with the loss of Ternate. Proceeding from the observation that knowledge of the period has remained excessively dependent on the account of Diogo do Couto (namely the *Década IX*), the author articulates historiographical reading with prospecting in available manuscript documentation and, above all, with the exploration of Jesuit correspondence, mobilised to reconstruct political decisions, administrative hierarchies, and implications for overseas governance. The analysis questions, in particular, the meanings of the tripartition of the Estado da Índia in 1571: more than a mere sign of decline, it is suggested that the division relates to mechanisms of containment and reorganisation of power in a context of instability, including the autonomisation of Malacca. It concludes that the end of the crisis must be displaced temporally and interpretatively beyond 1575, articulating the loss of Ternate with subsequent strategic responses and with the reordering of governance conditions that would culminate, at different rhythms, in the final years of the decade.

  • The article analyzes the political-military pressure exerted on the Estado da Índia in the region of Daman between 1572 and 1605, interpreting this period as a moment of defensive reconfiguration in the face of the “Mughal danger”. The argument maintains that the threat should not be reduced to a direct and episodic confrontation, but understood as a set of tensions that affected maritime routes, regional balances, and the security of the Portuguese fortified system around the Gulf of Cambay. Methodologically, the study reconstructs the evolution of military structures and armed settlement policies (garrisons, squares, “fences of stakes” and control of passages), articulating information on troop numbers, social composition of the forces (Portuguese, prazeiros and local contingents) and transformations in logistics and the design of defenses. Based on contemporary documentation and the historiographical reading of the Daman defensive system, the author traces how Daman functioned as a strategic platform for the protection of Bassein and as a connecting node between fortresses, especially through the use of rapid interventions by sea. It is concluded that the Portuguese response combined intensive fortification, rationalization of recruitment, and military obligations associated with land ownership and access to horses and weaponry, allowing the maintenance of the system’s effectiveness despite instability and growing regional competition.

  • The article analyzes, from a comparative and interconnected perspective, the beginnings of the republican regimes in Portugal and China (1908–1927), arguing that, despite the historical and geographical differences between the two contexts, there are parallel phases that help illuminate the transnational political dynamics of the period. The authors propose Macao as a structuring link between the two “first republics”: on the one hand, one observes the visibility of the Portuguese political impact in the early years of the republican regime in Macao; on the other, geographical proximity and social and economic networks facilitated the arrival, to Macao and its surroundings, of actors linked to the Chinese Republic. Methodologically, the text is based on a historical-interpretative reading of the stages of republican construction and consolidation in the two countries, articulating key moments such as the fall of the Portuguese monarchy (1908–1913), the 1911 Revolution and the proclamation of the Republic in China (1912), as well as the reconfigurations brought about by the First World War (1914–1919). Among the main results, it is highlighted that Portuguese participation in the conflict and the authoritarian drift after 1916/1918 find correspondence, in China, in the tensions between republicanism and monarchical projects led by Yuan Shikai, revealing distinct but simultaneous trajectories, in which Macao functions as a political and human interface.

  • The article analyzes the affirmation of the republican elite in Macau during the first quarter of the twentieth century, interpreting it as the result of the interaction between two central factors: the emergence of local political associations aligned with Portuguese republican parties and the social weight of Freemasonry as a network for consolidating loyalties and solidarities among the Portuguese community. The central argument holds that these dynamics functioned as a counterweight to the secular influence of the Catholic Church, in a colonial context where, although political loyalty depended on distance from the Metropolis, local political practice was organized primarily through elections and alliances of interests. Methodologically, the study articulates political-historical analysis and institutional reconstitution, exploring the local press and available Masonic documentation, with particular attention to the Camões Lodge — effectively two structures (1909–1915 and 1915–1930) subordinate to the Grande Oriente Lusitano. It concludes that the articulation operated by Masonic affiliation allowed intellectuals and prominent figures to harmonize strategies and dispute the “government of spirits” in the face of the anti-clerical measures of the First Republic, producing an ambiguous outcome in which secularization advanced in governance without completely eliminating ecclesiastical positions and assets.

  • The article by Fernando Mendonça Fava proposes a “brief note” on José Carlos da Maia, a Portuguese figure consecrated as a hero of the Republic and, simultaneously, governor of Macau, where he developed an administrative body of work considered decisive. The argument holds that the parallel between the establishment of the republican regime in Portugal (1910) and the rapid precedence of republicanism in China, in the context of the 1911 Revolution, as well as Macau’s historical ties between both powers, provide a privileged framework for understanding Maia’s biography as an expression of a transnational circulation of political ideas. Methodologically, the text adopts a flexible chronological thread and a contextual framing of events and persons, with selective use of footnotes for factual densification. The study organizes the narrative around four axes—sailor, revolutionary, politician, and martyr—assigning centrality to Maia’s leading role in the affirmation of republicanism and in the duration of the Portuguese First Republic, without neglecting his activities in Macau. Among the main results, the articulation between Portuguese political action and Maia’s personal sympathies for the Chinese republican cause stands out, including his relationship with Sun Yat Sen, whose biographical presence reinforces the pertinence of Macau as a historical space of mediation between “two revolutions” and “two centenaries.”

  • The article examines how Portuguese and Chinese republican networks converged around Macao between 1914 and 1916, focusing on Sun Yat Sen, José Carlos de Maia, and what the author terms the "Outer Harbour Project" of 1922. It argues that the appointment and actions of Carlos da Maia as governor of Macao were not circumstantial: the simultaneous presence of figures linked to Lusophone republicanism and activists from the nascent Kuomintang created an environment of clandestine cooperation that provided the 1911–1912 Revolution and its ramifications with a critical offshore foothold. Methodologically, the text combines a contextual reading of political events (the period of the Portuguese Republican Party, the formation of the Gemingdang in Tokyo, and the post-1916 reorganization) with a reconstruction of personal trajectories and circuits of revolutionary sociability (including Sun Mei’s residence in Macao and later that of Zhu Zhixin). The analysis is complemented by an examination of epistolary documentation, highlighting the letter of June 23, 1916, from Sun Yat Sen to Carlos da Maia, whose dating reveals the sensitivity and practical utility of this network. It concludes that the transimperial interdependencies built in Macao helped shape the resources, alliances, and strategies later reflected in the planning and operationalization of the port infrastructures associated with the 1922 project.

  • The article analyzes the Macanese presence in the response to the regional catastrophe triggered by the Sino-Japanese War and the Japanese invasion of Hong Kong, focusing on the “Hong Kong refugees” (1942) and the institutional mechanisms that enabled their reception in Macau. The central contribution of the text argues that forced mobility, far from being merely a side effect of the conflict, was mediated by legal statutes and consular networks, allowing segments of the Macanese diaspora—often dependent on colonial belonging and multiple nationalities—to renegotiate their security. Methodologically, the author articulates the historical reconstruction of events (1941–1945) with political-diplomatic contextualization, mobilizing narratives on the occupation of Hong Kong and on the actions of key figures in the administrative field, in particular the consular officer Francisco Vasconcelos Soares, responsible for enabling the recovery of Portuguese nationality by a group of migrants, predominantly originating from Hong Kong and subject to British nationality. As a result, the article highlights how Macau functioned as a port of refuge for different migratory profiles—including Macanese with recent and intergenerational ties—and concludes that the refuge experience reinforces the centrality of the imperial order and consular competencies in the production of diasporic trajectories in the colonial Atlantic and Pacific.

  • The article investigates how the figure of St. Thomas of Mylapore (Mailapur) was constructed and narrated in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century sources, both Portuguese and foreign, by articulating geographical location, circulation of information, and production of devotional knowledge. The analysis focuses on three main testimonies—Duarte Barbosa (c. 1516), Jan Huygen Linschoten (published in 1596), and António Bocarro (1635)—comparing how each author describes the city, its position on the Coromandel coast and its “Christian particularity,” as well as the versions of the legend associated with the apostle. Methodologically, a historiographical and intertextual reading is employed, privileging narrative divergences and strategies for legitimizing traditions: while Duarte Barbosa presents more succinct allusions, Bocarro offers a more explicit framework, with location and urban characteristics, and Linschoten reconfigures the devotional plot by introducing etiological episodes (river obstruction, intervention by means of elephants, Brahmanical opposition, and corporal punishments inflicted on descendants). It is concluded that the variations among the sources do not negate the persistence of the cult but reveal processes of adaptation of sacred memory to the objectives, presuppositions, and networks of each observer, offering relevant indicators for understanding the cultural transposition of Indo-Portuguese Christianity and the consolidation of a localized “St. Thomas.”

  • The article proposes a critical reading of Eurocentric theories on gender status in Asia, aiming to identify their main problems and methodologies, as well as their blind spots. Arguing that the discussion of the "other" and of the silenced voice must be articulated with a dimension of gender hegemony, the author revisits the debate surrounding Edward Said and questions the ways in which Western representations transform Asian women into static, stereotyped figures mediated by external discourses. Methodologically, the text proceeds through an analysis of ideological and rhetorical processes of identity construction, mobilizing an interdisciplinary framework that crosses ethnography, anthropology, historiography, fiction, and popular culture, as well as media and textual/visual sources. In particular, the "narrative of everyday practices" is privileged as a means of understanding how feminine identities are produced, contested, or reinscribed in time and space, and to what extent social transformations open up (or block) possibilities of autonomy, dissidence, and conformism. The conclusion is that a truly critical approach to gender studies must grant centrality to feminine voices, experiences, and ordinary practices that tend to be ignored, thereby countering the systematic substitution of speech by mechanisms of representation.

Last update from database: 9/15/26, 10:43 AM (UTC)