MARY CONWAY is disappointed by a three-hander that broaches big themes, but doesn’t transcend dry academia
Greater focus on the collateral damage connected to Salazar’s rule would have provided better context and more balance to his portrayal
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.”
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.
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