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Podcast: New Books in Western European Studies
Episode: Duncan Simpson, "I am pleased to inform the director: letters from Portuguese people to PIDE (1958-1968)" (Silveira, BookBuilders, 2022)
Description: Today I talked to Duncan Simpson about his book Tenho o prazer de informar o senhor director: cartas de portugueses à PIDE (1958-1968) ("I am pleased to inform the director: letters from Portuguese people to PIDE (1958-1968)")Were the Portuguese mere victims of the PIDE and the oppressive policies it imposed or, in reality, as under any authoritarian regime, did they interact with this police force by serving it or making use of it?Created in 1945, in a merely cosmetic reformulation of its predecessor (the PVDE), as it was too closely associated with the “fascist era”, the PIDE (a...