Salazar: The Dictator Who Refused to Die
by Tom Gallagher I Hurst Publishers £25

AS leader of Portugal from 1932 to 1968, Antonio de Oliveira Salazar was one of the most enduring dictators of the 20th century, wielding power through what his latest biographer, Tom Gallagher, identifies as a combination of “technical skills and acute political intuition.”

[[{"fid":"25379","view_mode":"inlineright","fields":{"format":"inlineright","field_file_image_alt_text[und][0][value]":false,"field_file_image_title_text[und][0][value]":false},"link_text":null,"type":"media","field_deltas":{"1":{"format":"inlineright","field_file_image_alt_text[und][0][value]":false,"field_file_image_title_text[und][0][value]":false}},"attributes":{"class":"media-element file-inlineright","data-delta":"1"}}]]He came to his exalted position largely as a result of the terrible period that followed the 1910 revolution in Portugal, which ushered in a democratic republic but led to more than 15 years of political and economic chaos.  

In 1926 a military coup tried to restore order and the army looked to Salazar - an economist, not a politician - to bring about some financial rectitude. He did such a good job that when he was eventually asked to fill the post of prime minister he could more or less name his terms, becoming absolute ruler in a bloodless coup of his own that turned the military dictatorship into a civilian one.