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Portugal is a small Western European nation with a large, distinctive past replete with both triumph and tragedy. One of the continents oldest nation-states, Portugal has frontiers that are essentially unchanged since the late 14th century. The countrys unique character and 850-year history as an independent state present several curious paradoxes. As of 1974, when much of the remainder of the Portuguese overseas empire was decolonized, Portuguese society appeared to be the most ethnically homogeneous of the two Iberian states and of much of Europe. This, in spite of the fact that Portuguese society had received during 2,000 years of infusions of other ethnic groups in invasions and immigration: Phoenicians, Greeks, Celts, Romans, Suevi, Visigoths, Muslims (Arab and Berber), Jews, Italians, Flemings, Burgundian French, black Africans, and Asians. Indeed, Portugal has been a crossroads, despite its relative isolation in the western corner of the Iberian Peninsula, between the West and North Africa, Tropical Africa, and Asia and America. Since 1974, Portugals society has become less homogeneous as there has been significant immigration of former subjects from her erstwhile overseas empire.The third edition of Historical Dictionary of Portugal greatly expands on the second edition through a chronology, an introductory essay, a bibliography, and hundreds of cross-referenced dictionary entries on important persons, places, events, and institutions, as well as on significant political, economic, social, and cultural aspects.

Through a chronology, an introductory essay, a bibliography, and hundreds of cross-referenced dictionary entries on kings, politicians, authors, architects, composers, artists, and philosophers, a thorough history of France is presented.

The Historical Dictionary of Slovakia offers in its second edition an up to date series of cross-referenced dictionary entries on Slovak political, social, and economic development since the creation of the second Slovak Republic in 1993 until its admission into the European Union in 2004. It includes all of the political actors: the presidents, prime ministers, and party leaders, and many leading academics and cultural personalities, including those from the national minorities. It also contains entries on the various institutions of the Slovak Republic like the judiciary, the armed forces, the media, and parliamentary committees as well as entries that explain Slovakia's position and role in international organizations like NATO and the European Union. The historical survey explains how Slovakia, in its post-Communist transformation, was almost excluded, but in the end became a full member of these two institutions. To the entries on Slovak history of the first edition, the second edition adds personalities, concepts, and events that marked this nation's struggle for survival over the centuries. The bibliography is expanded and contains the most recent works in Western languages on Slovakia as well as the most recent seminal publications in the Slovak language on various aspects of Slovakia's history. This second edition enables the scholar and the researcher to have easy access to the background and to the role of most of the institutions and personalities of contemporary Slovakia.