Bidspirit auction | Francisco Júlio Martins Sequeira e

Francisco Júlio Martins Sequeira e Manuel António de Morais Neves. - Portugal é Grande - Francisco Júlio Martins Sequeira e Manuel António de Morais Neves., 1937. Published in 1937 in Lisbon by Livraria Popular de Francisco Franco, this iconic official reading book for the 3rd cycle of Portuguese primary education, under the expressive title ”Portugal é Grande” (Portugal is Great), was written by the distinguished pedagogue M. de Oliveira Cardoso. It is an emblematic work of nationalist ideology and the patriotic school education program of the Estado Novo (National Propaganda Secretariat / Ministry of National Education), designed to instill in young Portuguese students the vastness and pride of the national overseas colonial empire of the time. The publication is profusely illustrated throughout the text with headpieces, decorative artistic vignettes, reproductions of historical drawings, monuments, regional scenes, and dozens of geographical charts and didactic maps of great geographical value. This copy is presented in its sumptuous and extremely rare original hardcover binding of grand red cloth, boasting on the front cover an extraordinary and gleaming graphic design stamped in black and gold that reproduces the famous propaganda map where the Portuguese overseas colonies (Angola, Mozambique, India, etc.) are superimposed on the European continent under the slogan ”Portugal is not a small country”. The copy is in excellent overall condition, both aesthetically and mechanically, with very clean and well-preserved covers and spine. The text block shows only the natural marginal yellowing of the paper due to age and occasional school annotations and signatures from the period, normal for the didactic nature of the work. One of the most historically, culturally, and collectible pieces of 20th-century Portugal.