The Carnation Revolution in Portugal (1974) – The End of the Last European Colonial Empire
This text is a preview of History of the Reception of Hegel, volume II, to be published in 2026 by Reflexivity Press.
The Belated Decolonization
Portugal is the first European colonial empire of the modern era (since 1415: Ceuta)—and the last to end. Until 1974, Portugal wages colonial wars in Angola, Mozambique, Guinea-Bissau. The army rebels (the Carnation Revolution, April 25, 1974), the dictatorship falls, the colonies become independent.[1]
The philosophical significance: the end of Portugal as a colonial power ends five centuries of European expansion. From 1415 (Ceuta) to 1974 (Angola)—“modernity” was always also “colonialism.” Now this epoch is over.
The question: what does this mean for Hegel’s philosophy of history? Hegel had claimed that Europe is the pinnacle of world history because freedom is realized here. But this “freedom” was always also unfreedom—slavery, colonialism, racism. Was Hegel Eurocentric—or was he read Eurocentrically?
Postcolonial critique (Edward Said, Orientalism, 1978, but with roots in the 1960s) shows: European philosophy (including Hegel) constructed the rest of the world as “the Other”—irrational, primitive, childlike. This construction served to legitimize colonial rule.[2]
But: Hegel himself was ambivalent. He recognized the rationality of non-European cultures (China, India have philosophy), even if he classified them as “preliminary stages.” The task is to turn Hegel’s method (dialectics, recognition) against his Eurocentric application. This is the achievement of Third World philosophy (see Chapters 13–15).