The geographer of transience

Review of ‘Orlando Ribeiro: the training of a scientist (1911-1940)’ 
by José Vicente Braga Costa, 2023

Abstract

Doctoral theses on the History of Portuguese Geography are not common; neither are those who use a geographical approach to the History of Science: José Braga Costa did both, and so he presents the academic community with a ‘Geography of Portuguese Geography’: that in itself, is noteworthy. But also the author elaborates on a portrait of the first years of Orlando Ribeiro scientific life that is both accurate and revealing, contextualising the geographer's scientific practices in the various spatial and social contexts — the Polytechnic School neighbourhood, the old Faculty of Arts in Lisbon, the Infante de Sagres high school, the Geography Institute of the Sorbonne, in Paris... — that progressively define his position in society and especially in the University. At the end of reading this study, the reader better understands Orlando Ribeiro's scientific temperament, and the main attributes of his 'geographical commentary' on lands and people. Personally, I was impressed by the clarity with which it is shown how Ribeiro's temperament is not inconsistent with the Goethean genius ('accompanied loneliness') and how this translates, on multiple scales, into the themes of his future research.